


Fourth Act

by fadeverb



Series: Kai and Mannie [7]
Category: In Nomine
Genre: Gen
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2013-08-14
Updated: 2013-08-15
Packaged: 2017-12-23 10:43:00
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Rape/Non-Con
Chapters: 23
Words: 78,987
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/925425
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/fadeverb/pseuds/fadeverb
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Eventually, Kai gets the call she's been waiting for.</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. In Which Someone Calls

Even though it changes the whole balance of riding, cuts down on how tight I can make my turns, how gracefully I can swing the fancy moves, I like having someone else behind me on the motorcycle. Two wheels and no walls make this kind of speed intensely personal, nearly as much as running, but on my feet I can only take myself along. On the bike, I can show another person all the motion spinning inside me.

Jack's car-of-the-day hovers in a dusty haze at the bend of the road ahead, then disappears around the corner behind trees. They've lined both sides of this highway with a thin veil of trees for hundreds of miles, as if they're ashamed of the clear-cut land and towns behind. It's a pretty enough illusion that I could almost not mind the deception. In a few minutes I'll have caught up enough to pass him, and then it'll be time for another tight turn slammed around the middle of the highway, back a few miles before another turn, and then off to catch him again. Jack and Sharon are happy to indulge me in my games, and even Nip, though she complains from time to time, doesn't hassle me much about these little indulgences. It's good to have friends.

Sharon leans forward, helmet touching mine so that she can be heard over the wind. "How far to the next place with a bathroom?"

The Symphony listens to my question, and rolls back a corner of the music to let me hear the melodic line I'm looking for. "Sixteen miles. Can you hold out that long?" Traveling with a human is a constant reminder of the things I need to remember when I settle down into a Role again. Eating, sleeping, and of course, stopping at bathrooms. For her part, Sharon's adapted well to traveling with people who don't need to worry about any of the above, and can fall asleep in the back seat of Jack's current car in five minutes flat. None of us have had the heart to tell her that she snores. Since Jack and Nip don't need to sleep, it doesn't matter, especially if Jack cranks the radio up. As for me, well, I prefer this bike to the car anyway.

"Oh, sure. So long as it's not fifty miles, I'm fine. Just didn't want you to pass it before I saw the signs coming up." Her head pulls away, though her arms remain wrapped around me.

Traveling around like this isn't the same as being back at my old job. Except for these three I see people a few days at a time, rush in and out of lives with barely a moment for greeting. No real sense of getting to know people, nothing like the years I spent at the community center. And yet it's like being more connected than ever. Twenty-four hours a day beside people who know exactly who I am.

I think they're glad I'm usually on the bike. They probably wouldn't be able to keep from killing me if we were all stuck in a car together for weeks on end.

"Hey, Sharon," I call, "want to try driving after the next stop?"

Her helmet clacks against mine. "Thanks, but no thanks. Not after last time."

"As you'd like." We got her broken arm taken care off within a few hours of frantic calling around for someone who knew the Song of Healing, but these things seem to bother humans more than they bother me. Of course, most humans don't try to beat down demons nearly so often as I do, so that could have something to do with it.

A zap in my pocket makes me twitch. Apparently it would have been too prosaic to give the phone a vibrate mode; instead, when I can't hear it, I get to set it to zap. Sparkies have a weird sense of humor. I pull off to the side of the road, beneath the criss-crossing branches of gorgeous, entirely imported trees.

"Problem?" Sharon asks, yanking her helmet off a moment after I do.

"Phone." I manage to pry the cell phone out of my pocket, from under a wad of cash. I don't know why Jack keeps giving me money; I never know what to do with it, except buy gas and new socks.

"Oh, right." She walks towards distant trees to give me privacy. Most of the time I wouldn't mind if she listened in, but she has peculiar ideas about what she shouldn't overhear.

There's no name coming up my caller ID, which is weird, but for all I know Mannie got a new phone. "Hello?"

"Kai," says a voice I haven't heard in...long. Too long. "How's it going?"

I have to search to find my voice again. "Pretty decent, Boss. I'm planning on heading back to work in about another month, that's how long they said it would take for it to be safe, but I can get there sooner if you want--"

"Don't worry about it, kid. I have something else for you to do."

I've been planning out my return for half a year. Plans melt away like shaved ice on hot pavement. "Okay. What's up?" I want to wrap myself up in that voice and ask a thousand questions, but...work is work. The Boss didn't send me down to Earth so that I could take care of my own wants first.

"A new Tether's forming, and it needs help getting on its feet. I want you to watch out for it and make sure it doesn't dissolve before it can be stabilized." 

"One of yours?" A whisper in the back of my head gives me an arrow to the location, a brief image of the outside of a building. Doesn't look like anything creative, but how much can you tell from appearances?

He chuckles. "Probably not. Think you can handle it?"

"I'll do my best, Boss."

"Keep up the good work." 

Nothing left but a pleasant hum, this phone's equivalent of a dial tone. I will not bother the Boss. He has too much to do without listening to my questions, asking about things he obviously doesn't want to explain to people like me--

I hit call-back.

No such number.

Don't know if I want to laugh or cry. I settle for snapping the phone closed, and putting it back into my pocket. And then tight pacing around a broken branch on the ground until Sharon returns.

"Who was that?" she asks, in the not-quite-interested voice that's supposed to indicate she's okay with it if I don't want to answer.

"That was the Boss. I have a new job to do." When I lost my old Role, it felt like free fall, scrambling to grab anything on the way down. I've been trying to get back to the right place at the right time for months, and now... I hit the ground and found the pavement got replaced with a pool of jello when I wasn't looking. My mind can't process this yet. "I'll explain when we catch up with Jack and Nip."

"They're how far ahead of us now?" She climbs onto the motorcycle behind me, adjust the chin-strap on her helmet.

"Oh ye of little faith. It's not far when I'm driving." I push as much acceleration out of the bike as it can handle, cutting off a semi in the process of merging back onto the highway. Sharon figures out that I don't want to talk, and settles into the seat, arms around me.

By the time I catch up with Jack's car to give them the "pull over at the next stop" signal, I've mostly worked through this in my head. Plenty of angels go through one Role after another as circumstances demand, or different jobs for the same Role; the way I stayed in one place for decades isn't unusual, but it's not what most everyone does, either. My Boss needs someone to do a job, he figures I'm the best one for it, or the most convenient, so, it's all good. I don't know if the task he's pointed me at will take three weeks or three decades. No matter. He knows me better than I know myself. If he tells me to do this, it's because he knows I can handle it.

I arrive at the rest stop while Jack's car is pulling in, backwards, from the exit. Sharon and I claim a picnic table out of the way of casual listeners while Jack goes after the vending machines. Of all the Choirs to get a junk food addiction, Mercurians make the most sense, but I'm boggled by the things he'll eat. I still don't want to know what the furry pink lumps are made of, no matter how hard he tries to convince me there's chocolate inside.

Nip drops down beside Sharon at the table, while I pace around. "Inside the building, there's a desk, and two men in neat, formal uniforms. They offered me a map of the state, recommended various brochures, and asked if there was anything else they could assist me with. I checked inside the restrooms. Cleanest, most modern ones I've seen in a month."

"And?" Sharon smiles up at Jack as he returns, takes the soda he offers. "Thanks. So what's so weird about that?"

"The last rest stop we were at in this state had filthy restrooms, decaying picnic benches, litter everywhere, and not so much as a security guard. Aren't these all run by the same organization? I can't reconcile the two."

Jack slaps Nip on the back. "That's life for you. If it made twice as much sense, it would be half as much fun."

"That's one way of looking at the matter." The Seraph frowns, gnawing over another oddity of the corporeal plane.

"That aside," says Sharon, "what was the phone call about?"

"Got a call? I was wondering where you'd disappeared to." Jack passes me a package of something greasy and an unnatural shade of yellow; I toss it into the nearest garbage can. "Hey, those were perfectly good."

"For excruciatingly unnatural and unhealthy definitions of good." I sit on the edge of the table, since Nip complains that it makes her head hurt if she tries to watch me while I'm pacing and talking at the same time. "So, yeah, phone call. From the Boss."

"Wait a minute," Sharon says. "From _your_ boss? Isn't he...um." She snaps open the can of soda and releases a shower of fizz over herself. "Jack!"

"Hey, you have a clean shirt in the car," he says, entirely unrepentant.

"Bastard." She slugs him in the arm, not very hard. I think it's some sort of courtship ritual for her age group and gender, though I'm not adept at reading humans when it comes to sex and romance. Definitely not my area of expertise. No doubt Jack knows what's going on. "Anyway," she continues, licking soda off her fingers between words, "I thought he didn't call, these days. Something changed?"

"Nothing major. I think." I would have heard if the Boss had come walking back into his Cathedral in Heaven, ready to explain what his big plan had been all along, or grinning mysteriously when asked about it. "But he has a new job for me to do."

"How long is it going to take?" Nip asks.

"Don't know. A few days, a few months, a few years... I expect you'll want to drop me off at the place. It's not too far from here; we can get there by midnight."   
"So you're finally moving on." Jack methodically shreds pieces of junk food packaging into smaller shreds.

"I don't work for the same Word you two do. And I shouldn't get into a rut, right?"

Jack stands up. "Guess not." He stalks off abruptly towards the vending machines again.

I can't stay sitting here. Back to pacing around the table. Nip's unusually free of acerbic commentary. After a moment, she says, "I'll return." She follows after Jack, hands in her pockets.

"Didn't mean to upset people." I think I have, though. Jack used to drop by my apartment once a month or so, crash on the couch and tell wild stories of his latest adventures, dragging in whoever he happened to be traveling with, then leave in the middle of the night, nothing but empty wrappers scattered across the floor and new antivirus software installed on my computer to show he'd been there. Why's he acting like this now?

Sharon turns her soda can around between her hands. "He'll get over it. Sit down for a minute, would you?"

"Sure." I sit down in the center of the table and pick at splinters from where the paint's chipped off the wood. "What do you think about this?"

"Hey, you get a job from your Boss, you go do it. I've worked out that much by now, even if I still have trouble with some stuff. Like trying to make plurals of the words... I mean, why the hell is it Impudites but Malakim?" She takes a drink from the can, and makes a face. "I'd mind the trick cans less if they didn't leave me with flat soda."

"So." I can tell when someone's avoiding an issue, and Sharon's doing her own version of walking off in a huff. "What do you want to do?"

"I." She takes a deep breath. "I want to stay with Jack and Nip. I mean, I _like_ you Kai, you're a great friend, and you're the one who got me involved in the first place, but..."

"But you like them too, and they're going to keep moving, happy to have you along, while I'm off doing something specific. And you don't know what part you'd have in that." She blinks at me. "I'm not quite as dumb as I come off, Sharon."

"I don't mean to ditch you..."

I laugh. "Oh, come on. I'm the one ditching, if anyone is. If you're happy with them, and they're happy to have you along, what's wrong with that?"

"You don't mind?" Her shoulders straighten. "Because, I mean, if you do--"

"No, really. Don't worry about it. I'm used to seeing my friends weeks or months or _years_ apart, and working on my own. I don't know how much I could help you, not while trying to do my job too. With them, you might end up a proper Soldier of God." I refrain from mentioning that having a bunch of Windies creating their usual brand of mayhem is unlikely to be good for a developing Tether; sneaky they may be when they want to, but Windies seldom keep quiet for long.

"That'd be--well, I don't know. Maybe." But she smiles as she says it. "I've already learned interesting things. How to pick a lock, hotwire a car, walk nonchalantly past security when I'm guilty of something, distract attention from a crime... You know. Useful life skills."

"And I'm willing to teach you how to ride a motorcycle, if you want another lesson this evening on the way there."

"In the dark? I don't think so. I'll stick to being the getaway driver and all-purpose distraction."

It's been at least a minute; I slide off the table, do a quick spin in the grass. "Did I ever tell you that Jack was the one who taught me how to ride a motorcycle? We used to run around together as relievers, I showed him a few things. When he got around to fledging, he stopped by to return the favor."

"You've known him a long time, then."

"Since he was nothing but three Forces held together with enthusiasm, yeah. Not that I was much more myself. It's kinda like the kid you met back in kindergarten, and always kept in touch with. Half the time you were best friends, half the time you barely said hi in passing, but there's always that knowing the other person's around." If I want to keep talking I can't go far, so it's around and around the one table, a single oval path to move through. "Some times I didn't see him for months, years at a shot." Hair falls in my face when I shake my head; I need to hack it short again. "He was always the one running off to do something again. Don't know why he's upset this time." I can see Nip from here, Jack's hidden by the wall, and she's speaking in a tone low enough that I can't hear.

"Maybe because you're the one running off, instead of him." Sharon begins to pick apart the braid she's twisted her hair into. "He'll get over it."

"Yeah." My pirouette feels half wrong. It's been too long since I spent much time dancing. "I think it rubs off on us."

"What does?"

"Human perspectives. There are angels out there who have performed one task, or stood in one place, for millennia. Concepts like loneliness or boredom don't come up for them. It's their job, they do it. Simple. Spend a few decades with mortals, watching people born, growing up, dying, how much things can change between two people in a few months apart... It rubs off. Whether you want it to or not. At first because you need to act the same way to not stand out, and then it's just...natural." I stop, and wrap my arms around myself. "I don't think it's a bad thing. But it can get weird at the edges."

"And you've just hit an edge."

"Yeah. Full on." I let go of myself, spin my arms free. "I'm going to go grab a few brochures."

"Want to explore the beautiful natural resources of this fine state?"

"Nah. I want to make paper airplanes."

The two men inside are just as Nip described, and are more than happy to fill my hands with as much glossy paper as I want. I fold my favorite design on the way back outside. "Hey," I ask Jack, when I reach him, "got a dime? I need to weight the nose for this to fly in a straight line."

He searches his pockets. "Used most of my change on the vending machines. How about a nickel?"

"Too heavy. Have a penny?"

"Nah, I toss those. They're no use."

"I have a dime," says Nip. She passes it over, and I ceremonially slot it into the place waiting for it in the plane.

I sling the plane out with all the strength I have, and it flies as straight and true as I've ever managed. Out across the picnic tables, past the parking lot, over to the highway, in through the open window of a truck rumbling by.

"Damn," says Sharon. "That's one good paper plane."

"I owe you a dime, Nip."

"Don't worry about it. I can get another."

Sharon yawns, a little theatrically; she's still working on the fine art of acting, and hanging around a Seraph is no help. "If we're stopping somewhere tonight, I'm grabbing a nap while I have the chance. Didn't get any sleep last night, thanks to _someone's_ refusal to turn off the radio."

"They were having an Eagles marathon. Can't turn off the radio during Hotel California," Jack protests. We meander back towards the car in a roundabout route, Nip deftly swiping someone's cell phone on the way. "It's the great American song."

"Hasn't a patch on The Day The Music Died," I say. "Though I'll grant Hotel California does some nice things musically."

"The Music Died?" Sharon asks. "I don't know that one."

"Of course you know that one. Everyone's heard it. Bye, bye, Miss America Pie..." I sit down on the motorcycle, and shake my head. "Surely you've heard it somewhere."

"Oh, wait, the song Madonna did a while back?"

Jack and I stare at her.

"Let us never speak of this again," Jack says.

"Agreed." I pull my helmet on. "North for about eighty miles, and then we're heading west. Think you can keep up?"

"So long as you remember not to cut across any places a car can't drive, sure."

"Hey, I only did that once."

"Three times," says Nip.

"Well. Three times. Don't worry, I'll stick to roads." 

I love sunsets on the road. Don't get me wrong, I love all sunsets, nearly as much as sunrises, but it's an extra special touch to drive towards the sun as the Earth whirls away in the opposite direction beneath me. When I was a lot younger I couldn't figure out why the corporeal plane didn't work like a treadmill, everyone needing to run in place to stay still, with the way the planet keeps spinning about. Later on an Elohite explained to me that the whole place is one big wheel, and you aren't standing in place. The stars running by overhead show you that.

I wonder if there's an Angel of Stars, and if so, what it does. Does anyone travel to the other planets, or further? I know Janus has a tether out on Jupiter, but I wonder if somewhere out in the empty stretches of space Ofanim of Jean are soaring through a long, lonely voyage towards distant stars.

Even at this speed, I can't outrun the sunset, and eventually I'm driving in the dark, the headlights on Jack's car two bright spots in my mirrors. Even with the streetlights that line parts of the highway, I can make out a fair number of pinpricks in the sky. The moving one's probably a plane, but for every other, a chance at a new set of worlds. Did God set up life on other planets? Somewhere out in space, there might be a whole different war going on, or maybe a place where there was no Fall, where all the angels wait in their Heaven for the souls to arrive, give counsel to the dead, have no reason to spend centuries on that planet combating the forces of evil. I'll have to ask an Elohite how likely that is; they're the sort to consider these things.

I wonder if it's wrong that I enjoy the corporeal plane so much. Without the initial rebellion and Fall, I don't think angels would have gotten down here much. It's not wrong to appreciate what good can come out of evil, is it?

Once we hit the city I take the lead and try not to let their car fall behind, zipping down side streets and roundabout ways to avoid Friday night traffic. The address I've been given sits solidly in the middle of a bad part of town. Older buildings starting to crumble, newer buildings cheaply made, more graffiti, fewer working streetlights. I roll to a stop in an alleyway near the place. Neighborhood like this, I'm going to need some way of locking up my bike if I want to keep it. But then, anyone who takes it probably needs it more than I do.

Jack's car is smoking when they grind to a halt by the red-painted curb. "We're out of gas," Nip says, clambering out of the driver's seat; she must have convinced Jack to let her drive. Seraphim of the Wind can be so good at convincing you to do things it's scary, even without being able to lie. "We ought to get another car." She grins at me. "I could try to teach you how to hotwire one."

"Not my area of study, thanks." Keys for the motorcycle in my hand, and there's no way I'm going to be able to keep it for long around here, so I pass them over to Nip. "Here. Find a good home for my bike. I'm sure you know people who would appreciate it."

"So you're really planning on staying." Jack's out of the car now, nearly shadowy in the night. The nearest functioning streetlight is a block away, and all the windows above us have curtains or blinds drawn. "What if you're done in two days?"

I find a triangle path to take from alley's mouth to car to telephone pole. "I don't think it's going to wrap up that soon, Jack. The last time the Boss gave me a job, I was in one place for decades. I'll be sticking to this one until I hear I should be doing otherwise." Unless I botch the job and end up with a baby Tether shredded before it can be stabilized, or worse yet, leading straight to some principality of Hell. "If I'm at loose ends, I know how to get a hold of you."

"We can wait here for three days," Sharon says. "That's how the rules go, right?"

Two Windies and an enthusiastic friend of theirs, stirring up chaos in this area for three days. I'll be lucky if there's a Tether left to guard. "It...might be better if you headed on. I need to keep things quiet."

"A Tether?" Jack shakes his head. "They're useful enough, but I never got the idea of babying them. Let them spring up where they can hold, and last as long as they ought to. Doesn't look like a place for Creation, anyway."

"Appearances can deceive," says Nip. She runs a hand along my bike. "Thanks, Kai. I will try to take care of it."

"Well, I'm not leaving you here on your own without anything," Jack says, and heads back to the car to dig through the bag he's been carrying around the last few weeks, full of whatever items he takes a fancy to. He returns with a shoebox that he shoves into my hands. "Happy birthday. Don't open it, don't open it, it's not much of a surprise if you open it _now_. Wait until we're gone."

Sharon gives me a quick, awkward hug. "Write, or something. Okay?"

"I'll do that." I need to find out what sort of celestial community this city has, work out where this Tether is and what's making it. Somewhere along the way I'll find time to toss a note towards one of the Windy remailers or couriers. "Be careful, and remember, don't attack demons until they're distracted by something."

"Hey, I carry a baseball bat for a reason, and I've gotten really good at shouting 'Look! It's the Archangel Laurence!' and then hitting them when they turn." Sharon claims the shotgun seat, and Jack's already starting the car, having said as much as he wants to.

"I'll miss you," says Nip. She pulls my helmet on, and starts the bike. "Try not to get killed." She's gone before I can respond, roaring down the street with the smoking car lurching behind. They'll make it to some parking lot near an exclusive club, find a car they like better, and be off again in another hour.

I'm going to miss them too.

I walk the rest of the way to the building the Boss showed me. One streetlight glows on the corner, just enough light for me to make out the words above the big front doors. Half the letters are gone, leaving pale images behind, as if the title has been frozen mid-flicker. Larch Street Community Center. I'm not sure what a larch is. The doors must have been pretty once, but they're covered in graffiti and carvings, and there's a heavy chain padlocked across the front.

Not the entrance for me. I scout around the side of the building, but every window is covered in boards, every door chained shut. How could a place like this be a Tether to anything? No one can get inside. Even if human belief began to build up around the place, I can't imagine it would be anything angelic. But if this were dissolving into an infernal Tether, the Boss wouldn't have asked me to watch it.

If I to need to break into the place just to find the Tether, maybe I shouldn't have sent the Windies away.

The decrepit community center stretches up six stories. Either this was some community center in its time, or people lived at the top. I stuff the shoebox Jack gave me into my backpack. It rattles on the way in. Then I find a stretch of nicely lined-up windowsills, dig my shoes into the cracks of the brick, and scramble my way up to the top.

The roof's flat, with a short wall stretching around the edge. I walk through broken remains of what must have been rooftop gardens, around a bird coop with a door listing from one rusted hinge. No sign of recent human activity.

And, finally, what I'm looking for: a single door at the top, merely locked, so weathered that the area around the door knob has begun to decay. If I take my time working on it, I can pry the lock open without disturbance. But not in the middle of the night, with all the windows boarded up. Morning light will keep me from doing something stupid, like falling through rotting stairs and breaking my neck.

Which leaves me with an entire night of boredom. Fortunately, I know someone who can keep me entertained. I choose a pacing pattern near the center of the roof, where no one from the street or neighboring buildings will be able to see me. Then it's time to sort through my phone book (I will not check for new numbers added when I wasn't looking, because there are none) and call.

The phone on the other side picks up. "Hello! You have reached the office of Emmanuel, who is not here right now! If you would like to leave a message, please do so at the beep!" The reliever on the other side counts quietly to three. "Beep!"

"Hi, Maharang. I take it Mannie's in a meeting?"

"Don't you want to leave a message?" The reliever sounds disappointed. "I can memorize it! And I'll write it down, too!"

"Sure, kid. Let Mannie know I called, and have him call me back when he has a minute, okay?"

"I have written it down. And I put the note on top of his coffee mug, so he'll be sure to see it. Anything else I can do for you, Kai? I'm becoming more responsible, you know. I'm learning about quantum physics! It's very interesting!"

"I'm sure it is. Actually, you could do my a favor. Do you have internet access of your own yet?"

"I do! Mannie says I can use his computer whenever I want so long as I tell him when email's coming through. He doesn't like computers much. I don't know why. I think they're keen!"

"I'll bet you do. I'd like you to look up something for me, if you know how to find the information; it might not be readily available. I have an address; I need you to look into the history of this building. I think it used to be a community center, but I don't know how long it's been closed, or why. Also, I'd like to know what a larch is. Think you can do that?"

"I can try! I'll do my best."

"I'm sure you will." I pass on the information I've been given, spend time exploring the roof further. A rusted watering can sits by a spigot that doesn't release any water when turned. In the corner of one garden, a large clay pot has cracked, dirt washed down to the level of the piece missing. There was a tree of some sort planted there, but it's dead and dry now, little more than a stick with roots exposed. Did someone plant this tree and care, or was it part of some garden that no one remembered after the center was closed? I break off a dry twig, and remains of bark crumble in my hand.

"A larch is a conifer that loses its leaves in the fall. Isn't that weird? But finding out more about that building is hard. I'm going to get help!" The phone clatters down on the desk when Maharang drops it, and while the reliever's fluttering off to get whoever it considers help for this task, the speaker rests near enough some speaker that I can hear music. Never noticed music when I used to ambush Mannie in his office, but at this volume, he might have had it on without me noticing. After a moment, I place the piece that's on right now; the end of Wagner's Ring Cycle, as the ring is returned to the Rhine maidens. Given when he first hit Earth, I'm not surprised Mannie's a fan of the classics.

I've found old pigeon nests and a deflated child's ball when Maharang returns to the phone. "Okay! I found someone to help, but it looks like that place has been shut down for years and years. Says that it closed due to, um, financial difficulties and lack of interest, and there was something about a lease not being renewed, and! There was a director of the place who'd disappeared around that time. Does that help any?"

"Actually, yes." Mysterious disappearances, financial trouble, lack of interest... It could be nothing at all, or it could be an old Tether worn down by demonic attacks, trying to build itself back up again. Though that wouldn't explain why the Boss would send me off to guard a Tether not even connected with Creation. What sort of intense human belief builds up around a place dead this long, and why would it start now? "Thanks for looking into it. Good luck with the quantum physics!"

"Thanks!"

I pace the rooftop for another half hour. The neighborhood is dead quiet, except for when a car speeds through with windows down and radio blasting. An argument breaks out half a block away, voices raised in anger and indignation, but a door slam cuts that off before I can make out any words. I liked my old community center better, a sprawling building surrounded by a park, not far from the local college. We had a pond full of overfed ducks, and--the boss doesn't want me to go back there. I screwed up, my Role got toasted, if he wants things to work out he'll send in someone who's not going to be drawing in unwanted elements.

It hurts, all of a sudden, because I know I screwed up, and I was meaning to go back and fix things, but the Boss knows better, and apparently I can't fix things. Someone else has to do it for me. The best I can do is to get out of the way, let that angel do the job right, and...work on this instead.

At least the Boss still trusts me enough to give me this job. I am _not_ going to mess up this time around.

The phone zaps me. Must remember to switch that back to the ring setting. "Hello?"

"I got the message Maharang left, that you'd called," says Mannie. "More precisely, I, ah, fished it out of my coffee, but I'm reasonably sure the ink's not toxic, even if you could poison someone in Heaven. I see it's time to have another discussion with it about the way moisture affects the structural integrity of absorbent, rigid materials."

Earlier in this Role I used to call Mannie my boyfriend, as an excuse for calling him with regular updates. The term's kinda stuck, though I'm not sure how well it applies to the relationship between an Ofanite and Bright Lilim, especially now that we're not often on the same plane. It's a weird, human term, but I can live with using it. Regardless of what we choose to call it, he's my best friend, for all that he's an arrogant workaholic with enough issues to fill a few library shelves. But then, I'm distractible, not dreadfully bright, and enough of an optimist to make certain people twitch, so I figure it's a fair trade of annoying quirks. "Good to hear from you too. Long meeting?"

"You have no idea. We're trying to arrange for some work to be done in the Marches, but Blandine is, bless her sweet Archangelic self, being obstructionist and uncommunicative, to the point that Teresa's started muttering every time she sees Menunim walk by. And the project isn't urgent enough to work around her without any help from angels with recent experience in the Marches, so this is taking three times as long as it ought. Don't these people understand the importance of science?"

I lean back against the wall next to the door, to watch the stars overhead. If I squint, I can almost see them moving. "Admit it. You love it."

"...well. Yes. But I could do with more cooperation between various organizations. Not that the level of hostility has reached what I was accustomed to having from my partners on a given project. Nonetheless, I'd expect angels to be more, ah, angelic."

"Just because everyone wants to do the right thing for the greater good doesn't mean everyone agrees as to what that is." Not many stars to see from the middle of a city, though the lack of lights in this area helps. I wonder if ambient light still causes the same problems if you have a telescope to work with, or if you can kinda see beyond the light pollution. I'll have to ask Mannie about that some time. "I mean, look at the Judges and Warriors. One little trial a while back, and not even a _conviction_ or anything, and they're still holding grudges. I don't get politics, I really don't."

"It probably doesn't help your comprehension of such that you hold unusual opinions about Judges, Kai."

"Hey, they're by and large good people doing a tough job." I push away from the wall to get back to pacing. "Which reminds me, if I end up staying here long, I ought to send someone a note so that they can send a triad my way. I haven't been questioned about my recent activities in months, not since we ran into that one Judge over in Vancouver. He was awfully nice about it, too, even though he had to ditch the suit." I still send notes to my old triad from time to time, though not as regularly as I ought; traveling with the Wind doesn't lend itself to a lot of stopping at Tethers.

"You're stopping somewhere?"

"Oh, right! I forgot to mention. The Boss called. I have a new job to do." Better than ice cream or flying, to be able to say that. Even better than coffee.

"Ah." Scratching on paper at the other end. "Kai, you might want to consider not mentioning that to Judgment. As far as they know, you're still running around with Jack."

"But I'd like to meet up with a triad again. Helps me keep doing what I'm supposed to be. They're good at reminding me when I'm getting too distracted by other stuff." And I like knowing that someone will notice if I go missing. It's lingering paranoia to think about things like that, there's not anyone out to get me by this point, and that's the sort of thing I need to talk about with a triad. Can't let a few bad experiences start dictating my actions. "Besides, if the Boss meant for this to be a secret, he'd have told me, right?"

"I suppose so." Mannie doesn't sound convinced, but he has a low opinion of Judgment. Probably comes from being more familiar with the Game. "What does he have you doing?"

"Watching out for a baby Tether, though it's not a Creation one. The Boss didn't give a lot of details on why he wanted me keeping it safe, but I'll figure that out as a I go along. Or not. He doesn't always bother with explanations."

"You have a remarkably high tolerance for knowing nothing about the purpose of your assignment."

"Comes with the Word I work for. These days." I find myself back by the little dead tree. A cold wind's picked up, leaving me glad for the jacket I'm wearing. "Anyway, you don't need to worry. This place is quiet, I intend to keep it that way, and there's unlikely to be anything serious to worry about."

"Kai, you managed to lose a foot in Milwaukee."

"I got it reattached!"

"Milwaukee, Kai. I have no doubt you could walk into a Zen temple for meditation, and half an hour later there would be a demon dead in the middle of the floor with a bamboo mat stuffed down its throat, and you'd be stumbling outside covered in blood saying something ridiculously cheerful. Allow me to indulge in some needless worrying on your account. And do call if anything dangerous comes up."

"Come on, Mannie, I can take care of myself. And you have other work to do than to watch out for me." I wonder if there's any bit of this tree, hidden down in the dirt, that could be resurrected. Or seeds dropped on the ground. A Seneschal of Flowers told me that some seeds could germinate decades, centuries after being dried and left somewhere cool. He was using it as a metaphor for bringing a demon back to the light of Heaven after a lifetime of serving Hell, but I think he meant it literally too.

"So consider it a hobby of mine. People keep telling me I should have one."

I laugh, spin a circle around the broken pot. That much I can fix with glue and patience. "Fair enough. I would have suggested taking up the violin again, but worrying seems more your thing."

"And I have it down to an art form."

He's only joking, but you can make an art out of nearly anything. "Gotta start somewhere, Mannie. You could end up writing the definitive work on the art of worry. Its history, development, refinement, techniques, different schools of thought on how it should best be approached..."

I finally get a chuckle out of him. He needs to smile more often. For someone who enjoys his work so much, he spends an awful lot of time frowning at things. I think it's his way of showing he's taking things seriously. "Maybe I'll get around to that when I have the time."

"You never have the time. And you're about to say you need to get back to work."

"I'm afraid so, Kai. I don't multitask very well."

"Hey, everyone needs a single character flaw."

"Only one? I'll have to speak with the person in charge of inventory. It seems I've been allotted too many." Someone else's voice in the background, probably Nosha; Teresa never sounds that cheerful. "And now I need to get back to work."

"Talk to you later." 

That's the last of my calls for the night. I slide down cross-legged against a patch of wall, and pull out the shoebox. "Happy birthday to me." I don't know the date my Forces first stuck together and sent me zipping through the Halls of Creation, but I first stepped down onto the corporeal plane in the spring, and I'll count that as close enough.

Item number one, if I can call it one item: handfuls of cash. I sort through the bills, stop counting after the first stack of fifties and hundreds puts me over a thousand. Entirely like Jack. Item number two, an ugly little relic we picked up when we ran into (well, over) an Impudite of Death. None of us are sure what Song it's for, though we have figured out it can hold four notes of Essence. Don't know what I'll do with _that_ , not when I'm trying to keep from making disturbance, but maybe I can trade it to some other angel in the city for help with my job.

Item number three is what makes me wonder, when I find it at the bottom of the shoebox under a wad of blood-stained twenties. A little silver key, with a wind-blown tree etched into the head. I haven't seen Jack use this in years, he'd laugh at the idea of needing it for ordinary purposes, but why would he give me his skeleton key? I don't even serve the Wind. I have no right holding onto a talisman made by Windies for opening mundane and infernal locks alike.

The key slides into the lock on the rooftop door. I wiggle it around for a moment, trying to remember what I've been taught about lock-picking, and the lock clicks open, just like that. I shut the door, latch it again. The stairs down are too black a maw for comfort tonight.

I can't give it back now that he's gone, and I'm not about to trust something like this to the mail. No wonder he wouldn't let me open the box until he'd left.

There's nothing left to do but pace along the rooftop and wait for sunrise.


	2. In Which I Meet Something Beautiful

I set up my surveillance system when I grew tired of having Judgment Servitors appear in my office without warning. From the way they walk, stiff in the spine and trying not to look around, this set is dreadfully young. A brand new triad, sent out to observe a Bright Lilim in its natural habitat. Far more entertaining than the stolid Judges who come by less frequently to ask me serious questions.

"Mannie," says Maharang, darting in through the reliever flap in my office door, "there's a triad coming down the hall--"

"I saw them already, but thank you." I switch from official work to one of my personal projects, and tap at the timer on my desk. If I'm going to be disturbed, I'm very well going to count it as break time, since my supervisor insists I take daily breaks. "Did you want to watch?"

"Oh, quite!" The reliever climbs up to the top shelf of my bookshelf, and sits down on one of Newton's works. "I'll be quiet."

I flick off the video feed on my computer when the triad, standing outside my door, works up the courage to knock. A three-count, and then I hit the switch to open the door. Five pairs of eyes blink at me as I swivel my chair around. "Come in. Is this going to take long?"

"Oh," says the Cherub, a big black dog with wings so fluffy they're ridiculous on a Judge, "he's really a--" The Elohite claps a hand over the Cherub's mouth before she can finish the sentence.

"Emmanuel, Bright Lilim of Lightning, we greet you. We only have a few questions," says the Seraph.

I indicate the one other chair in the office. The three of them share glances, then finally the Seraph coils into the seat, with one of her companions on either side.

"Well," I say, tilting my chair back slightly, "who's come to see me today?"

"Servitors of the Most Just," says the Seraph, pulling herself up very straight from her coils. A young triad indeed.

"And what a curious phrase that is, don't you think?" I can hear Maharang's stifled giggle from the shelf above me.

"...what phrase?" asks the Seraph, blinking its eyes in pairs.

"Most Just. Applying a superlative to justice assumes a sliding scale, from least to most, rather than a binary form where something is just or not. Now, in math, if I ask what two plus three is, and receive a range of answers, there's only one correct answer, and anyone who's missed it is wrong, anyone who's found the answer is right, no comparison beyond that. To be the Most Just, one declares justice to have varying degrees of rightness, and that Dominic has a degree higher than anyone else. Which therefore means everyone else, by necessity, is to some degree unjust."

"That's...not quite how it works," says the Seraph, now blinking its eyes all out of sync with each other. "It's. Um. It's."

"One might even further consider that by this phrasing, the Archangel of Judgment places himself above all other entities which might be measured in terms of how just they are. Which means either Dominic ought to be considered more just than God, or that God cannot be measured at all in terms of justice. Either conclusion would be interesting to investigate, especially in light of Michael's trial for pride. Don't you think so?"

"Um," says the Seraph.

The Elohite frowns. "An error in logic. If there is a highest point of some quality, having reached it does qualify someone for 'most', even if others have also reached that same point. Furthermore, any superlative must be considered in the context of what set it refers to, and the phrase in question does not, in fact, explicitly define this set. In order to form any positive superlative at all, one must nearly always assume that God is, by definition, removed from the set examined."

"Very good," I say. "The Elohite gets the metaphorical cookie. So, what can I do for you kids today? Standard set of questions?"

"Um," says the Seraph. "Yes. Standard set of questions. That's why we're here. To ask you the aforementioned set. Of questions." She still seems unsettled, and if a moment of wordplay can shake her up this much, it's a good thing they have her training in Heaven. I'll never be able to break the brains of Seraphim as well as Kai does entirely on accident, but I find my amusement where I can.

I assure the three of them that I haven't engaged in any significant heresy of late, I've been dutifully working at the assignments given me by my Superior, I'm not staying in contact with anyone I knew in Hell, and every other usual answer. When the list has been run through, the Seraph droops as if she's disappointed to not have caught me out in anything. "Those are all the questions, Most Holy," says the Cherub, as the Seraph searches for something else to ask.

"Um. Yes. They are. We'll...be going, then. Thank you for your time." The Seraph winds her way out the door.

"Did you want the cookie, before you go?" I ask the Elohite.

"No, but thank you for the offer." It nods politely to me before leaving.

The Cherub lingers. "Excuse me," she says, once the other two are out the door, "but if you don't mind... Can I see your wings?"

I can picture her as a reliever; she must have fledged most recently of the three. "Certainly." I stretch out my wings for her, give her a moment to admire the blue lightning fractals. Zif tells me that a little vanity won't hurt me, if I'm careful not to indulge . "Since the Elohite didn't want it, would you like the cookie?"

"What kind?"

I open the box I keep for relievers, young Judges, and Nosha. "Shortbread, with chocolate stripes."

"Oh, yes, please."

I toss the cookie into the air, and the Cherub snaps it up in her jaws. "You'd better hurry if you want to catch up with them."

"Yesh," says the little Judge, around a mouthful of cookie, and scampers out the door.

Nosha enters the office as the Cherub exits. "Mannie," it says, dropping into the vacated chair, "have you been taunting the Judges again?"

"Would I do something like that?" I pass it a cookie from the box. The Elohite arches its brow at me. "It's not like I'm filling their heads with thought experiments like your Choir does. Some of those are beyond me. It's nearly enough to make me wish I were an Elohite."

"Only nearly?" Nosha grins. "Who wouldn't want to be part of the most objective Choir?"

"Seeing as that would mean I had once been a Habbalite, I'll pass, thank you."

"You have a point." Nosha nibbles around the edge of the shortbread. "We're finally making progress. Gariel has nearly managed to convince them that since we intend to pursue this experiment regardless of their opinions, they'll want to send someone along to watch us. Which won't make for the most hospitable guide, but we didn't expect hospitable from Dreams."

"Though you'd think Teresa did, from the way she's responding."

"She hasn't spent much time working with other organizations in Heaven; the hostility has come as something of a shock." It chuckles. "She sees it as aggressive, unreasonable, hostile obstruction. Sometimes I envy those who have never spent time in Hell."

I reflect upon how difficult it was to function alongside people supposedly my coworkers on a common goal, when I still worked for Vapula. "Agreed."

"And what's your Ofanite up to, these days?" Nosha reaches over to where I left the box and acquires another cookie. "Still traveling the world with a pack of Windies?"

"Actually, no. He's--she's settled down somewhere." I weigh Nosha's reliability in my mind, and decide that while it won't keep a secret if it thinks telling would be more useful, it has a better grasp of ultimate objective good than I do. "Eli called."

"Really?" Nosha sits up straighter. "And did he ask Kai not to mention this to Judgment?"

"Apparently not. Which means that as soon as my batty little friend calls the nice Judges about this new assignment--"

"There'll be at least one group investigating. Wanting to know what Eli's up to." Nosha tilts its head. "I understood why Eli wouldn't give new tasks to a Servitor who fails to comprehend why it might not want to tell everything to Judgment when they ask. And now... I wonder if this was a deliberate attempt to direct attention towards an area, or if it's only something that won't be troubled by the sudden inclusion of several curious Judges."

"I wouldn't know," I say. "It's, ah, ineffable."

"Superiors with their lack of effability," Nosha says. "Always challenging." It finishes off the second cookie. "Would you like to come look at one of my personal projects? I've done all I can on our assignment before we leave, so I'm making use of the down time."

I check the break time I've used up, and how much I'm supposed to burn today. "Certainly. I'm only fiddling with numbers at this point. What are you working on?"

"My car. I'm having trouble integrating the two power sources properly. I might be losing power from inefficiencies in the electrical system that connects the two."

I follow the Elohite down the hallway, Maharang winging behind us. "Channeling atomic reactions can be tricky. What sort of wiring system did you choose to work with?"

"Classic, though I'm considering ripping it all out and replacing it with a modern set. The advantage of having it appear normal to casual under-the-hood inspection begins to be outweighed by the inconvenience of energy transforming into less speed than I'd like."

"You don't want that. I'll see what I can work out."

Half an hour later my phone rings while I'm elbow-deep in the engine. "Maharang, would you get that for me?" The reliever pulls out the phone and holds it up. "Hello?"

"They _took_ their own sweet time about it, but we're finally going," says Teresa. Grumpiest Mercurian I've ever known, not that I know all that many. "I'll collect the equipment and meet you at Blandine's Tower. Is Nosha there with you?"

"Yes. I'll pass on the message." I begin to extricate my hands from the engine. "We'll meet you there."

"Good. It's about time."

Maharang drops the phone back in my jacket pocket. "You're going now? How long will you be gone? Can I come?"

"Yes, I'm not sure, and no." I wipe my hands off on the towel Nosha offers. "You're too young to go wandering through the Marches."

"I have five Forces! It's not so little!" Maharang attempts an indignant pose on the hood of the car, like a glaring fairy hood ornament. "I could be helpful! And...helpful! And stuff!"

"I'm sure you could, but we're heading out from Blandine's Tower, so I can't call it safe." The reliever remains unmoved, so I switch to another tactic. "Besides, you wouldn't want to miss your physics classes and fall behind, would you? Or your electronics club meetings? And you can't work on your project for the mousetrap car contest if you're on the ethereal plane in a place where physics doesn't work."

"Oh," says Maharang, defeated by my, ah, brilliant argument strategies. "In that case, I'll watch your office for you while you're gone, just in case any Windies come by!"

"You do that," I say. The chance of Servitors of the Wind getting that far into the Halls of Progress unnoticed and then escaping with items from my office is slim, but who am I to keep a reliever from feeling useful? I pick the reliever up from the hood, a world of trust and enthusiasm in my two hands. "Goodbye, Maharang. I'll let you know as soon as I get back."

"Try to make it back for the contest! I think I'm going to win." The reliever heads back to my office, while I follow Nosha off towards Blandine's Tower.

"Dealing with relievers is challenging," I say, once outside the Halls of Progress, as we follow a stone path towards the tower in the distance. "Attempting to convince someone to follow a course of action is simpler when the person has selfish desires." Being able to read what they want in their eyes makes the tactic even easier.

"I know what you mean," says Nosha. "Convincing a gremlin to do something is a matter of being larger than it is, and within grabbing distance. For a reliever? They want to be useful, and will pester you about it until you find something that fulfills this need for them. This requires more thought." It pokes me in the side. "Not that this a _bad_ thing."

"Do I sound like I'm complaining?" I pause. "Fine, I did sound like I was complaining. But I'll take relievers over gremlins any day."

"Not the most nuanced rendition I've heard of the argument for Heaven over Hell, but a practical one," says Nosha. It smiles at people as we pass, and some smile back, while others give it the look one gives a chipper Elohite. "I'm glad you agreed to work on this project. You seem to have worked through your initial misgivings."

"A polite way to refer to my paranoia," I say. "The chances of encountering anyone in the Marches holding a grudge are slim, and I'll be in good company." I can see Teresa in the distance, waiting with boxes of equipment guaranteed to work as well in the Marches as it does in Heaven, except for when it doesn't. "Besides," I add quietly, "Zif would start asking awkward questions if she found out I let something like that interfere with work."

Nosha nods. After a few quiet steps, it says, "The chances of her coming out of Trauma soon are high."

"And the chances were even higher a few days after she went into Trauma, but she...hasn't. Still." I don't know what to do with my hands. Put them in my pockets, maybe, so that I'm not gesturing helplessly in the air. "When Kai was in Trauma, I researched all the statistics, correlations, theories. After the first few weeks, the statistics go haywire. The only sure thing is that most people come out of Trauma...eventually. Sometimes 'eventually' is a long time."

"In that case," says Nosha, "it's not worth worrying about. You can't help her by worrying." It slows down, keeping us away from other people a few moments longer. "Unless worrying helps you deal with the situation, somehow."

I laugh shortly. "Hasn't Kai told you? It's my hobby."

"That would explain _so_ much about you," Nosha says, and puts on a bland expression to deflect my glare. "Let's not keep Teresa waiting. Wouldn't want her to explode in a feathery cloud of stress."

"You're sure?"

"Do you want to compile all the readings? I don't."

The Mercurian is a pale figure of annoyance, standing at the entrance. "You took long enough," she says. "They won't let me in until everyone arrives. And is anyone going to help me carry this?"

I pick up one of the boxes. "Sorry to keep you waiting."

"Whatever." She folds her arms, and all her feathers stick out at angles suggesting high stress levels. "I still say we should have dropped into the Marches from another direction and avoided this ridiculous bureaucratic roundabout."

"And gone wandering unaware through the land of dreams with no idea what to do there? I'm not sure if I should call that brave or stupid, but I'm leaning towards the latter." The Malakite who's appeared behind her gives us all a lazy once-over. "I can't disagree that the plan would have been preferable, as then I wouldn't have to leave my duties to shepherd you about. Let's see. Mercurian, Elohite, and Bright Lilim. How interesting. That seems to be everyone. Shall we go?"

Nosha nods, and takes the lead, while Teresa and I follow behind with boxes in hand. "My name is Nosha, and I'm in charge of this aspect of the project. Is there anything you'd like us to keep in mind for while we're working together?"

"If I tried to tell you how to deal with the Marches, I'd be talking for a year," says the Malakite. "Stick close, don't touch anything whether you think you recognize it or not, and we're unlikely to return to Heaven a celestial shorter than we left. My name is Amets, and I have the displeasure of being your tour guide for however long you poke at things best left untouched." He pauses in an inner doorway, and looks back at us expectantly.

"The name is Teresa, and I'm not impressed by the stonewalling we've been getting." I have no idea why people say Mercurians are good at tact and diplomacy. Perhaps they're talking about different Mercurians than the ones I've met. "We could have begun this stage a week ago if you all hadn't been so, so--"

"Please don't harass our escort," says Nosha mildly. Teresa shuts up.

"And you, Gifter?" Amets has spread his wings to cover the inner doorway. I don't know why he's so intent on taking care of introductions before moving on, but it's wise to indulge the locals.

"Emmanuel. Though most call me Mannie."

"And how long have you been what you are now?"

"Less than a year." It's a personal sort of question, but I'd rather he ask it than make assumptions about my more recent virtue based on what he's reading from me. "I believe I'm the only one of us three who's spent much time in the Marches."

"That's something." His wings tuck away behind him, and then he's a black-feathered blot advancing down the dark corridor.

I like the halls near my office. Straight lines, logical layout, well labeled, and well lit. This passage twists and turns as we follow it, and the irregular floor curves mostly, but not entirely, downwards. The light here barely suffices to show Amets's form as he stalks onward. I try not to remember my occasional flings with claustrophobia. Surely Dreamers must take a different route to the Marches when traveling from Heaven. Or is it only that this place, unfriendly to us, chooses to present itself so bleakly? Kai would find the shadows in rough stone walls beautiful; I find them unnerving.

Time and space stretch around me at the edges of perception, snap back into place silently. The next turn takes us to a doorway, and from there, to a foggy sky full of opaque bubbles, silver sand on the ground.

"Very much like it has been described to me," says Nosha, "but to see it is different." In this place where you are what you see yourself as, the genderless, smooth Elohite is a child, a girl with braided pigtails and sturdy overalls. I should have guessed that would be Nosha's favorite form, and here, where it makes no difference how the Elohite wishes to appear, as good a seeming as any other. For myself, an appearance of my vessel seems suitable.

Teresa is still her white-winged self, and turns around in a circle. "Where did he go?"

For a moment I can't see the Malakite either, but there he is, a figure difficult to make out. "He hasn't gone anywhere, Teresa," I say.

Amets laughs softly. "I told you to stay close. Lose me out here and you might never find me again. Shall we proceed? I've visited your destination twice, and the walk will take some hours."

At this part of the Marches, so near Blandine's Tower, walking is easy. Silver sand drifts around our feet, bubbles of dreamscapes glide past, and in the distance a flash or glimmer appears through the fog as angels of Dreams go about their work. Teresa's muttering dies off as we move along, and Nosha skips alongside the Malakite, braids dangling behind her. I can't help looking over my shoulder, up into the sky every so often... But whatever ethereals linger in this part of the Marches have no desire to approach us.

I check the time on my phone, and watch the minutes jump backwards, forwards. "Nosha, I know this is supposed to work in the celestial and corporeal planes. What about ethereal?"

She drops back to walk beside me. "That's late-model, so it should function here. But it's in beta. Why do you ask?"

"Because the time-tracking is going south. Is that a problem with the phone, or an aspect of the Marches?"

"I don't know. Possibly both. You'll want to submit a report to the group working on those once we get back." Nosha twists a braid around one finger. "I like the Marches so far. This is because we're still in a peaceful area, because I can take on a form I prefer, and because I'm in good company. I need to remember not to let this distract me. Would you help me with this?"

"What, you want me to tell you if you're too happy?"

"If I'm in danger of letting it affect my judgment, yes." Nosha skips backwards in front of me. "This is the first time I've been on the plane that corresponds to my preferred Force type. For all that I'm a celestial creature, it feels like home. But I don't know the area, and this is a dangerous reaction. So please watch for any signs of my objectivity slipping."

"I'll try, Nosha. Do you think this is going to be a serious problem?" I don't like the idea of being in charge of keeping the _Elohite_ in line.

She grins. "Low probability, but I'm being extra-cautious to compensate for unknown factors." She turns around, searches for Amets, and skips alongside him.

The sign that we're passing from the Vale of Dreams to the Border Marches is that the dream bubbles fall back behind us, and then no longer pass us, leaving us walking on a beaten dirt road. Amets fades into more distinct view, and gestures us forward. "There's a checkpoint this way," he says.

Nosha watches the mist rolling overhead. "How can anyone try to contain so large an area? I wouldn't think you could pen dreams in like sheep behind a fence."

"With difficulty, Power. The open borders around the domain of Nightmares makes it no easier." A snarl ripples briefly across Amets's face. "Though it helps that we know any powerful creatures we find inside the Vale came through there, and can't be trusted, no matter how harmless they may seem."

"I suppose that's a useful conclusion," says Nosha, and I know the Elohite well enough to understand everything not being said in that sentence.

Two sets of black wings appear out of the fog, then the Malakim, sweeping down on us. I suppress the instinct to turn and run. As guards of this hazy border, they mean to appear intimidating and impressive, but they have no reason to quarrel with us.

Amets bows as they land. "Escorting a pack of Sparkies to an abandoned Domain in the Far Marches," he says, "to make sure they don't wander off and get eaten or destroy something important. Anything unusual been driven in the direction of the dry river recently?"

I can't imagine what one of these would call _unusual_ in the Marches.

"Five ethereals traveling together along the road," says one of the Malakim, "but they left when confronted. They seemed more confused than aggressive; they must be new. Aside from that, no. This stretch has been quiet of late."

"Too quiet, or just quiet?" Amets asks.

The three Malakim converse for a few minutes, using classifications and terms I've never had cause to study. While I've spent time in the Marches, most of my interactions with ethereals were with those that had reached the corporeal plane, a different class from those who cling to human dreams. One of the guards gives me a sharp look during the conversation, when I've withdrawn to sit on boxes of equipment and can't hear what they're saying.

Teresa fumes. Nosha draws circuitry diagrams in the sand with one finger, then blows them away with a quick puff of breath. I reach into my pockets for a notebook, then recall that none of my notebooks in Heaven are artifacts, and can't leave the celestial realm.

No matter. The Marches are the stuff of thought and imagination. I pull a handful of sand up from the ground, bend it to what I want it to be. Notebook and pen twist themselves into temporary substance. It's enough for me to begin scribbling out reminders, notes, diagrams. When Kai is restless, pacing is the obvious solution. As for me, I write. 

Amets returns to us. "As good a day as any other, to head into the Far Marches," he says.

We haul the boxes up, follow him off the road, while the two other Malakim silently watch.

The further we travel from the Vale, the more we see amidst the sand and fog. Buried skeletons of monstrous creatures, houses so long ruined there's nothing but foundation, a fraction of a wall still waiting for... I don't know what it waits for, or why it gives that impression, but the wall lingers in the mist in the corner of my vision when I'm long past it, hoping faintly that I'm the one it's waiting for.

We walk beside a dry riverbed for some stretch of time, Amets cautioning us not to step _into_ it, but keep close to the edge where ground crumbles away. Nosha no longer skips, but walks quietly, examining what we pass without touching anything.

At some landmark only he recognizes, Amets stops. "We're leaving the river now," he says, "and now you need to stay close. It's not much further, but these are not friendly places."

"And here I was thinking the decaying remains we passed back there were a welcome mat," Teresa says. "Do they spend time teaching Servitors of Blandine how to sound foreboding?"

Amets shrugs. "If you get lost, I'll come back to look for you after I get everyone else to the Domain. But I wouldn't recommend it."

Six steps away from the riverbed, we're walking near a stand of tall pines. Cold wind gusts between the trees, batting my jacket around me. Amets continues walking briskly, one hand on a sword I hadn't noticed before.

Far beyond the trees, some creature shrieks. "Don't listen," Amets says quietly. "And don't stop."

It shrieks again, and again, but then we're beyond the trees, mist rolling behind us to hide sound and sight in an instant.

Amets stops, crouches down, and sweeps away sand, sending billows up into the air. "Nearly there," he says. Then he's pulling open a door in the ground. "It's down the stairs. As soon as the door closes the sand covers it again, so there's no need to worry about that being apparent from outside."

"That's not what I was worrying about," Teresa says, and follows Nosha into the hole in the ground.

I have reason to dislike dark places reached by descending stairs. Amets holds the door open, waiting for me. "Is there a problem?" he asks.

"Yes," I say, "but it's not yours." Down into the dark, and when he follows the last hazy light of the Marches disappears. There's no sound when the door shuts.

Stumbling blind after the sound of Nosha's footsteps, I walk through a touch, a taste, an impression of having been surrounded for an instant with water, and then I'm inside the Domain.

The light inside is so bright I can't see for a moment, and I twitch as something brushes against me. "Pardon," says Amets. "You were standing in the way."

My vision clears to...beauty.

Ten thousand pieces of machinery whirl above me, wires sparking, tubes rumbling, gears clanking against each other in perfect harmony. Every piece slots perfectly into the ones beside it, and the vast, glorious machine churns away, suspended in the air.

"Perpetual motion," says Nosha, and claps her hands together. "Only in a dream! Oh, this will be fun to study." She crouches down to run a finger along the ground, a pale yellow material. "Slight curvature. A sphere?"

"Yes," says Amets. "You can walk all the way around in any direction; gravity works in the direction of the floor, from the central point. Why you'd want to spend that much time on this thing is beyond me. The Domain is abandoned. We searched when we found it, as we were looking for something particular, and there's nothing alive in here."

"Except for the machine," says Teresa.

"I don't think it's alive. It's more scenery than personality. No honor reading." Amets seats himself neatly on the floor, and pulls out a whetstone. "Unless it wishes to run off and devour the dreams of humanity, I don't care, either."

If I stretch out my hand, I can come within a finger's width of touching a wire that vibrates overhead. "It's beautiful."

The Malakite snorts. "About what I'd expect from a Sparky." He begins sharpening his sword.

"Mannie, come look at this!" Nosha bounces up and down on her toes further along the curve of the sphere, and I recall what she said about being too happy. I stride over there, adjusting to the way gravity curves beneath me as the floor does.

"What did you find?" She's standing near a low set of taut wires, and they're a lovely part of the whole process, but nothing unusual that I can discern.

"Watch." She claps her hands firmly together, and the wires vibrate, then abruptly stop again. A flicker of light runs out of each of them, travels down strut to gear to--I lose track of it in the whirl of the machine. "It's converting the vibrations back into...something else. Extra energy doesn't disrupt it, it's _assimilated_."

"Do you think it's alive and doing that consciously, or is it all programmed?" There are too many parts to see the center of the machine, though occasionally the way gears turn and pistons slam gives a glimpse inside.

"I don't know. Short of discovering if this thing has any Celestial Forces, I'm not sure there's a way to tell." Nosha turns to me, grinning. "Give me a lift, and I can climb inside to watch where the sparks are going."

"Nosha, you're talking about making physical contact with a massive machine we don't understand, with powers we haven't interpreted yet, and then climbing between gears and pistons and live wires..."

She blinks at me, and frowns. "You're right. That was a ridiculous suggestion. Thank you. We'll want to do plenty of instrument readings before we try touching it in any manner." The Elohite sighs. "I am overly enthusiastic. I will be more careful."

"Overcome by the sight of it?"

"You understand." Nosha tugs on her braids. "I had not expected to find myself so easily swayed by curiosity."

"Curiosity is our specialty though, isn't it?" I offer Nosha a hand, and she wraps hers tightly around mine. Tucks her other hand carefully into a pocket. "Let's go help Teresa set up the instruments."


	3. In Which A Search Is Successful

Sunrise stops me with the touch of an Essence rush. Nearly as good as caffeine. I've spent the night pinging for coffee shops, libraries, parks, museums, all the places I'll spend more time once I get the chance. It would be handy if I could ask the Symphony where other angels in this area hang out, but that's not the sort of question I can get a straight answer for. Once I give Judgment a call, they might have a better idea.

The day's cloudier than I'd like, but not having any way to check the weather, I'd better get going sooner rather than later. The door clicks open again with Jack's key. I take the stairs down slowly, in case the insides of the building are more decrepit than the outsides.

The windows on the top floor have been covered with boards, but only loosely, a slat or two nailed down over each. They must have pulled out ladders or lowered people from the roof to reach this high. Why bother, when no one seems to care about the place? It wouldn't matter if the windows broke, if nobody was ever going to return.

I search the top floor in a methodical fashion that would make an Elohite proud, room by room, moving through each square foot in case the Tether is a tiny, focused thing. It's the sort of place ghosts would haunt, old caretakers going through the motions of teaching those who used to visit.

Most of the furniture's been removed, leaving only a few covered couches and desks, everything coated in a layer of dust so grimy it doesn't swirl as I walk through. Later on I'll go through the desk drawers, but for now I'm impatient to find the Tether. I'm not going to find a locus inside a drawer.

Nothing on the top floor. Down to the fifth, where covered beds show there used to be apartments here for staff, or maybe temporary rooms to rent out. The last room I check is a closet packed with rusting pails and broken brooms. I rub my hands near-clean on my jeans, and head down to the fourth.

Six rooms in, I find a dining room with full table, and attached, a kitchen. Plus faint, scuffed footprints. The insides of one of the sinks nearly shines, alongside four identical industrial-size sinks coated in caked-on dust. If someone's living in here, Tether formation would make more sense. I don't think most humans would be comfortable scaling the wall; there must be another entrance I didn't see outside. 

Even taking this floor more slowly, nothing jumps out at me. Three floors in and I'm already itching to get outside, somewhere with space to _run_. Maybe the Boss is teaching me a lesson about patience. Maybe I was the only Servitor nearby and available. Maybe it's part of some grand plan I'm never going to understand.

Third floor. The windows have been properly boarded up now, leaving the hallways dim, and the rooms so dark I have to walk slowly to avoid bumping into things. 

Flicker of movement that I nearly miss. By the time I've turned to see it, there's nothing but a wisp of--wait a minute. No bird or animal that, too quick and small to be a human child. I dash out of the room, catch a shadowy flicker as it flicks down the stairs.

Down down down _turn_ , I hit the second floor running, and I could outpace this creature easily in a straight run, but it knows where it's going and I don't. A winged bird thing, featherless and dark, don't think that's anything natural. On a stretch of hallway I close the gap, can almost touch it when the critter drops straight _down_ , and, a hole in the floor, at least it can't go through solid objects or I'd have a problem. I'm moving too fast to stop at the edge, so I jump the hole, turn, drop down through with one hand grabbing the floorboards to avoid falling too far. The ground below waits solid and ordinary, so I let go, take a look around.

Pitch black on the first floor; they've put serious effort into sealing the windows down here, and I think I've dropped into a closed room. The light from the hole above doesn't extend far. I've lost the whatever-it-was. Ethereal, I'd guess, but such a small soundless dreamlet isn't too powerful. A watchdog of some sort, but for whom? More powerful ethereals (though I wouldn't expect those anywhere near a newborn Tether), a circle of sorcerers who have taken over the place, a demon of Nightmares... I don't have enough information.

I should have packed a flashlight.

A dog creeps up to my spot in the light. Red eyes, and when it opens its mouth, all its insides are a washed-out white. It flashes teeth at me, and growls. A guarding ethereal, then. 

"And what's your job here, puppy?"

The dog growls more loudly, takes a step closer. As my eyes start to adjust to the dark, I can make out the spiked collar around its neck. I reach out a hand, and it begins barking furiously, and...doesn't attack. I wouldn't call something like this safe, but it hasn't been set to maim, only warn off. On the other hand, it might be that it's not allowed to dismember people standing in this particular place, or it's on an invisible leash.

Standing still isn't my thing. I move out from beneath the gap in the floorboards above.

The dog opens its mouth wide, and howls. A wave of terror washes towards me. Not so bad as standing up to a Habbalite; I push aside the influx of emotion, let it ripple away around me. "Nice try, but I'm not running anywhere while I have a job to do." Which is going to involve finishing up my search of the third, second, and first floors. And...I hope there's no basement.

Baffled, the dog stares at me with wide eyes. It cocks its head, and then, as I walk forward, whimpers, tucks tail, and flees into the dark.

Something hard smacks me in the back, clatters to the floor, and I stagger, whirl around to face the direction it came from. Not hard enough to do any real damage, but that hurt. "What, you don't want to come out and talk?"

"MINE." Another item flying out of the dark at my face. I catch it in one hand. A wrench. A decent weapon even in untrained hands, and I could do _real_ damage with this thing. The voice sounds human, though that doesn't tell me anything. "Get out."

"How? Came down through a hole in the floor, and I can't see the stairs from here." Sure, I could get back up with a good jump, the ceiling's high but not dreadfully so. Not going to tell this whoever-it-may-be that.

"Mine, mine, MINE." Another tool clatters past me; a hammer, judging by the shape I make out as it disappears into the darkness. A faint glow approaches me from the far side of the room, brighter as it draws closer until I can make out a humanoid figure. Glowing? Scratch the 'ordinary human' idea, unless this one's been bathing in glow-in-the-dark paint. "Don't touch, get out, it's mine."

Up close he looks human, aside from the horns on his forehead and the faint green glow that surrounds him. Must be convenient to provide your own light source in a place as dark as this, though less so when you can't turn it off. Discordant six ways from Sunday, and that's just what I can see. How messed up must his head be by now? And what's he doing down here? Tethers spring up from what humans do and dream, or from the world itself, not from celestials of any flavor.

He takes a swing at me. Clumsy, more aggression than skill, and that crowbar isn't about to scare me. I barely even need to bend to avoid it, and then it's hand on his wrist, pull him around, knee in the back and I'm holding him down on the floor--

\--while a touch of disturbance jangles from...me. From me hitting him. That doesn't make any sense. Sorcerers call up dreamlings and ethereals to push around, or demons if they're particularly arrogant, but they don't start glowing or sprouting horns. "What are you?" Not a fair question to ask when he's trying to pull away from my hold, and I'm the one who's come barging in here, but I have a job to do.

"Nothing much," he says, and starts sniffling, he's _crying_ down there while I hold him.

This is just sad.

I let go, stand up, though I'm not about to go far. "I don't suppose you could clarify? That's dramatic, but it's not useful."

He pulls himself up to sit on the dusty floor, arms wrapped around his knees. Standing above him, I can't see him as much of a threat anymore, and whatever he might be, he doesn't look like more than a kid. Late teens, maybe early twenties in the gawky way some humans get before they settle into their adult bodies. He wipes his nose with the back of one arm, leaving a greasy streak across his face. "It's a curse," he says, and his words come in odd gaps, pick-up sticks tossed on the ground to lie where they've fallen. "That's what my mother said. It's a curse."

I drop down onto the ground in front of him, resting lightly enough that I can get back to my feet fast if anything more dangerous than a melodramatic teenager appears. "What kind of curse?"

"From my father. My mother--she--" He wipes away the tears with an angry brush of one hand. As much pride as any other child his age, crying in front of a stranger. "She had real power. And so did he. And she called him up, and when she finally banished him, she says he cursed me, that's what happens, it was his curse. It's his fault I'm like this."

Boss, what on God's green earth have you sent me to deal with? Child of a sorcerer, and I don't know if his father's demon or ethereal, probably no easy way to find out. Whether he's Nephillim or Gorgon, this kid's been given a nasty lot. I don't know much about either variety, but I know they don't start this way. Perfectly ordinary kids until it hits, and then... so much for normality.

Of course, this one seems lucky enough to not have been hit with homicidal tendencies, though for all I know he requires the blood of fluffy kittens and puppies to keep himself alive. "What are you doing here?"

"She. Um. My mother called up something, and..." He blinks several times, the way kids do when they're trying not to cry. "Shouldn't have. She _knew_ better, but she called up something nasty. She was trying. To find something that could lift the curse. Some sort of, um, spirit of healing, or hex-breaking. Like that. And I _ran_ , I should have tried to help but I ran."

"And how did you end up here?" Sounds like the type that deals with ethereals, not demons, though I'm way out of my depth. I don't know much about sorcery and its side-effects beyond "tell Judgment if you run into any." I think Gorgons still count as human, as much as any Soldier of God, right? So maybe he is behind this Tether that's supposed to be...somewhere around here. Maybe it's under the sink in the kitchen upstairs. What would anyone do with a Tether that's under a sink? Just try fitting a bruiser vessel through there. You'd have to hollow out a place just for people to appear, and no one would be in a good mood on coming through.

"Underneath. Down in the basement, there's a door that goes into another building. All blocked off, but I found it. I called up a spirit of finding lost places." His voice is growing steadier as he speaks. It reminds me of Mannie working his way back to confidence by complaining about some poorly-done aspect of mechanics or wiring. "It led me to the door, opened it for me. I can come and go from the building next to this, if I'm careful." His gaze has gone sharp when I was distracted, not so much watery now. "I answered your questions, and fair's fair. What are you, and what are you doing here?"

"The name's Kai," I say, and maybe he won't notice I'm avoiding the first question. He certainly has enough to distract him. "And I'm here looking for...a place."

"What kind of place?"

"Couldn't say." I stand up, more than tired of sitting there, and pace a seven-point pattern through the patch of light from above. "I'll know it when I get there. I just know it's inside this building. Somewhere. I was looking for it when your bird noticed me. That is yours, right? Because if there are two people in this building calling up ethereals, I'm going to seriously consider asking for hazard pay." Or calling up Judgment and asking them to drop by. They may not be gentle, but they're just, and having one kid-sorcerer pulling up ethereals is enough to make me nervous. I know that all angels are supposed to report any Nephillim they come across, but what about Gorgons? And no one's happy about ethereals running around with the Song of Fruition. Considering what happened to the poor kid sitting in front of me, I finally understand why.

"Yeah, it's mine." He puts out a hand, and the shadow-bird flies down from darkness to land there, its cloudy feathers making strange patterns in his green glow. "Its name is--well, its real name is really long and hard to pronounce. I call it Polly." His face promises wrath and retribution if I dare mock the choice in names.

"Hi, Polly. Can you talk?"

The bird shakes its head, and flutters away again. "It's smart enough to understand what I want," the boy says. He climbs to his feet, ignoring the hand I offer. "But it's using a body that can't talk. I'm not sure how much it understand of the actual words, and how much is that it gets what I mean."

I fail to understand the distinction, but that's not important right now. "So, that and your dog--"

"Sirius."

"You read that book too?"

The boy blinks, and smiles. "Where the star was cast down to Earth in the body of a puppy, sired by the hounds--"

"That one!" I spin in the light. "Great book. I mean, you could have just named it for the Dog Star, but I saw the red and white and wondered--"

"He says he used to work for a lord of the fae," says the boy, "but he got lost during a hunt once, went too far out looking for the prey, and the longer he stayed out the less he wanted to come back, and then I called for a guard." He abruptly sticks out a hand. "My name's--well, my real name is pretty stupid, but my friends called me Al."

I shake his hand formally. "Pleased to meet you. How long have you been here?"

"Oh. Um. Months. I guess. I left in, uh, late November. It was before Thanksgiving." Now that he's standing, he's taller than I am again, and peers down at me. "What's the date, anyway?"

"You really don't get out much."

"No, I... I don't. I've been working." He abruptly turns his back to me. "I'll turn on the lights."

"There's electricity in this place?"

"Some. I use it for, um, testing. And things. I ran a cord from the other building, I don't use much power, mostly when I'm working, I can... I can see. Guess the curse is good for something."

"I'd go for a flashlight, myself." His glow fades as he walks further away.

"Yeah. Me too." All around me, points of light spring up. He's strung the room with Christmas tree lights, little white pinpricks along the ceiling and walls. Not much lighting, even with how many he's put up, but enough that I feel confident stepping away from the spot I've been criss-crossing. "Sorry, but I wasn't, well, I wasn't expecting anyone but me to be here. And I've been busy." He shrugs, a teenager's apology. "I'm...sorry about throwing things at you. When I'm working I get really, um, focused."

"No harm done." The room's large, a higher ceiling than I'd realized, and the floor's made of proper wood. All the walls have a bare look to them, as if something's been removed.

A dance studio. People used to dance, here. There were mirrors on the walls, I can see where the bars where bolted in so that young dancers could rest their feet.

And taking up a quarter of the room, right in the center, a...structure. Machine? I have no idea what it is. I'd call it a pile of junk, except every piece is too obviously arranged that way to be trash. "What's that?"

"That's. Um. My project." He smiles nervously as I approach. "It's...silly, I guess. You wouldn't be interested." His entire voice screams that he wants me to ask.

"No, tell me about it." I move around the structure, pacing out the dimensions. It's nearly a sphere, struts and wires and things I can't name beyond "bit of metal in some shape I don't recognize" expanding outwards from the center. "What does it do?"

"It doesn't do anything. Yet." He sighs, and scratches around one horn. A strange gesture to see on kid who, aside from sorcery and glowing, seems very much your average teenage boy. "I don't know if it will. But it's...look, you're not going to laugh, right?"

"Promise." I lean forward at one point, careful not to touch anything; I don't want to find out how much structural integrity this contraption has by collapsing it on my head. There's a wide space in the center, large enough for two people to stand comfortably, or three uncomfortably if they're about the size of my vessel. "Tell me about it."

"I used to...dream. Of this machine." Al's gesture takes in the thing he's made only vaguely, like he means something like that, not that specifically. "When I was a kid, from when I was in first grade or around there, I'd dream about it every night. All the different parts. There's so much to it, there was a different part to see every night. I saw the whole thing from the outside, then lots of details close-up, and then..." He wraps his arms around himself, a hammer clutched tightly in one hand. "The dreams stopped. I hadn't seen all of the details, but the dreams stopped."

"When did they stop?" He's been working on this thing since he got here, I'm sure of it, and one human working endlessly at a single project, the memory of dreams... Ten gives you one, as Jack would say, the baby Tether is lurking inside.

"Between. Um. After my mother sent my, my father away. But before the curse hit. And then with the curse there was the _noise_ , all of it pouring in..." He rocks on his heels, arms wrapped tight. An unprepared kid getting hit full-force with the music of the Symphony, crashing into his head between one moment and the next... It's a wonder he's this functional. I can't imagine it. "Mom said that hearing it meant I was destined to be, to be someone with power like she was, but I needed to get rid of the curse before I'd ever be great."

"Is that what you want? Power?" I'm probably pushing harder than I should, but I don't know how much I'll get out of him if he goes sharp-eyed again.

"I don't know." His shoulders curl in. "Maybe. If it would get rid of this, sure."

Not very helpful, as answers go. I stop beside him, gesture to the machine. "You saw it in your dreams. Why are you building it?"

"I think my father sent me the dreams," Al says. "Maybe it was... a test. Seeing if I understand it. If I can _make_ it, maybe he'll... maybe he'll come back. And take away the curse." He adds, in a lower voice, "It's not like I have anything else to do."

If I knew him better, I'd hug him and tell him we'd work something out. As it is, I only wish I could get away with that. "Al," I say, "can I look at the inside of your machine? I'll try not to touch anything."

"Sure," he says, waves towards the insides with his hammer. "It's sturdier than it looks."

I step between wires and scraps of metal, step carefully towards the bare spot in the very center. 

There, the instant I cross the border I know. An infant Tether, stuttering and lashing out around me. As effusive as any child, the Tether tries to show me its insides, streams of power wrapping around me, as it reaches out to connect Earth to...

Heaven. Hell. Heaven again. Somewhere alien and cold, it must be a part of the Marches, and then back to Heaven again. This baby Tether is wild, as full of potential for triumph and tragedy as any child. And all it has for a parent is an uncertain sorcerer-Gorgon who's following a dream he doesn't understand. No wonder it's confused.

I make my way back out of the machine. "Do you call up ethereals often?"

"Spirits? Not... not many. The powerful ones can be dangerous." A little twitch from him. I wonder what he saw when his mother summoned one she couldn't handle. "Only when I need them. To get food, or parts, or... Things. I’m not as good at it as--as some."

"Tell you what." I have a box full of money in my bag, and nothing to spend it on but my job. "If you'll stop calling them up, leave the spirits alone--I mean, aside from Sirius and Polly, since they're already here--I'll help you out. Not on the machine, that's your baby, but I can get you pieces you need, keep you fed, and help you guard this from anyone who might want to mess it up."

I don't need to be an Elohite to tell he's torn between suspicion and hope. He can't have been getting much hope offered to him of late, not looking like that. "That's your place, isn't it. The one you were looking for. I've built around it. That's why the spirit led me here, so that I could build this on the, um, is it a ley line? A node? One I couldn't tell?"

"I don't know what all it is," I say, "but it's what I'm looking for."

"Deal," he says. I don't trust him to keep to this agreement, not if he finds something better, but that's something to work with.

I go back to pacing, while Al gets back to work, attaching strands of wire to a tiny portion of the machine. Baby Tether, what do you want to be when you grow up?


	4. Intermission: Near Minsk, Russia. February 1902.

Aglaya was escorted in by the Djinn who was attuned to her, though she couldn't see the point in it anymore. She'd told everything she knew, spoken until she was hoarse about all the little details, answered every question asked until she was dry, bone dry, sucked clean of all information she'd carried in her head. Now that the telling was over, she was too valuable to discard, not trusted enough to put in any position of importance. They might as well shut her in a laboratory with an assignment, let her be, come rattling the door for results. She had nowhere else to go.

The Djinn had never told her its name. Here on Earth it was a heavyset man, face and body speaking of rough peasant stock, vessel twice the weight of hers. She felt absurd, tiny, helpless in this new laboratory. It nearly shone, scrubbed clean in every corner--and Aglaya nearly laughed, to see that as they'd entered someone was scrubbing in a corner of the room, a thin maid with wide eyes, wearing a bruise on one side of her face. She thought, _I could do that, I could hurt her,_ and nothing screamed out inside of her at the concept. How freeing. How terrifying.

Three others worked in the laboratory, two of them prodding a tangled piece of machinery whose purpose she couldn't identify. The third, a young woman wearing men's clothing, looked up from where she'd been making notes on graph paper. "What's this, then?" she asked.

The Djinn shrugged. "New. To help." He added, after a moment, "Recently from the other side. Might know something of use."

"So I see." The scientist strode over toward her, looked down at her. "What's your name?"

"Aglaya." She could have changed it, but what would be the use? A name was such a little thing, compared to everything else that had changed.

"Not your Role's name--"

"That is my name." She swallowed, hated the need to say it. "Aglaya. Impudite of Technology. Formerly...of Lightning. I am told my skills may be of use."

"See?" The Djinn shoved her forward, broad palm between her shoulder blades. "Yours now. Not my problem anymore." He turned and stumped away out the door, and Aglaya hated that she desperately, urgently wanted him back. At least he wouldn't hurt her.

All the soft folds of her dress felt absurd, here.

"Well." The scientist looked her up and down. "We're doing well enough, but if you can speed our progress, that would suffice to justify your presence. And if you can't..." The woman's smile was cold. "I'm sure something could be found for you to do."

"Where would you like me to begin?" Let them send her to work on something. She could lose herself in the work, theorize and test and build until she forgot she'd ever been anywhere else.

"Oh, I couldn't set you to a task. You'll want to speak to one of our supervisors." The woman snapped her fingers, turned towards the door in the back. "Hari is out acquiring more components, and possibly doing other things, so you'll want to speak to the Lilim."

"She's second in charge?"

The demon laughed shortly. "They're both in charge. It must amuse someone to put both on the same project. If you want to keep that vessel, stay out of their way when they begin to argue." She opened the door, and led Aglaya down a hallway with numbered doors on either side. The noises coming from behind some of the doors made Aglaya shudder, and follow quickly.

At the end of the hallway, two doors opposite each other remained unmarked. The scientist rapped on one, then opened the door without waiting for an answer. "We've been sent another one," she said, pulling Aglaya inside with long fingers wrapped around the Impudite's arm. "I suspect someone becomes impatient with our lack of results."

The man who sat behind the desk was tall, thin, dressed in the style of lesser nobility out to work on something that required practical clothing. He looked up from where he'd been bent over his notes. "And what did they send us this time, Vera? Another gremlin to break things and apologize badly? If they continue to send us assistance we may never finish at all." He wore the expression of a man seldom pleased by what he saw.

"A little Mercurian of Lightning got herself tripped, and we're given the result." Vera let go of Aglaya's arm. "Should I see if she's better at cleaning things than the gremlin was?"

"No, I'll find something to do with her." The man--Lilim--waved the scientist away. "Go. Try to become useful. If you can create results, all the better."

"As you like, Maharang." The door clicked shut behind Vera. Leaving Aglaya in the room with this one.

The Lilim turned back to his notes, and she was grateful for it, for a moment to breathe without having him look in her eyes and know what she needed. She moved forward slowly, aware of how foolish her dress was in a proper laboratory, how little her most recent Role suited her to what they required here.

The office held cabinets and cabinets, a few open doors showing the stacks of files. Everywhere papers and stacks of books, ledgers, schematics folded carelessly and left beneath other things to be wrinkled into a mess. The Lilim showed no sign of interest in her, scribbling away at the papers on his desk. She stepped forward and straightened a book that threatened to fall from the top of a stack.

On the floor in the back, nearly hidden by the stacks, she saw a curious little device. Copper wheels spun silently around a central point, crossing each other's paths but never colliding, while in the center a series of pendulums swung. It made her nearly dizzy to watch. "What does it do?"

The Lilim looked up, and she regretted speaking. "I mean," she said, her voice faltering, "I don't...quite see what it does. It only seems to spin, without being connected to anything else. What does it do?"

"Nothing," he said. He stood up, so much taller than her tiny vessel, and stalked about the desk in her direction. "Tell me, what do you do?"

"A...a little bit of everything, sir." She couldn't recall what name the other demon had used for him. "I'm not a specialist."

"No, they couldn't send us someone useful..." He spoke to the air, in an aggrieved tone. "Well," he said, more in her direction, "if you do nothing at all, that would be better than some they've sent us. I know better than expect competence, but I may be lucky enough to acquire more use than disaster from you. What did you do?"

Aglaya spread her hands. "I...watched, sir. For signs of, of infernal interference. And sometimes I inspired. I know enough to understand things, and I've done some small time of lab work, but I'm...not a scientist, sir."

He stared down at her for a moment. "At least you know your own incompetence," he said. "Tell me, have you any ability at organization?"

"Yes, sir."

"Then work on this." One gesture took in the mess of the office. "My late and unlamented predecessor left me with this. There's unlikely to be anything worth salvaging, but I'd never hear the end of it if I simply burnt it all, so sort through everything. Put aside any piece that isn't entirely worthless, or which you can't understand."

"That's all?"

"As if I'd give you a more delicate task? See if you can manage that first."

She didn't scowl or glare, because he terrified her. She terrified herself, these days, being what she was. Aglaya seated herself neatly in a corner of the room, and began going through the papers.

Time passed outside; with no windows, all the office lit with electric lights, she lost track of how much time. On occasion a scientist would enter the room with news, and the Lilim would snarl over what they brought. Once she heard the door across the corridor open, and the Lilim left the office. For several minutes there was silence, and then shouting she tried not to listen to. The Lilim did not return for some hours.

Aglaya sorted through papers and ledgers and schematics and books. They became a comfort to her, solid objects that waited for her touch. Her decree was final for those doomed to the fire, her benevolence temporary to those she saved. Every sorted stack gave her a moment of satisfaction.

From conversations held in the office as if she weren't there, she learned the names of the people working there, that the maid was a gremlin liable to break things if unsupervised, the nature of their project. The Lilim, Maharang or Mannie depending on who spoke, had a harsh comment for every piece of information brought to him, for every person mentioned, whether they were present at the time or not. The only one who escaped his acidity was the unspoken One that no one dared refer to directly. She sat and worked during every conversation, invisible by her lack of relevance to the project. No one who was not working on the project could matter.

And then she was done.

Aglaya stared for several minutes at the room, blinking. Every stack she saw was one she'd organized. She stood up. The Lilim was the only one in the office, and he had that little whirling machine on his desk, was staring at it.

"Mannie?" She was pleased to see him twitch. She hadn't spoken since he first set her to the task, and it seemed he'd forgotten her. "I'm done."

He blinked. For a moment, looked almost...pleasant. Like an ordinary person one could speak to in a reasonable way. And then his habitual expression slid back on. "I see you took your time at it. What have you sorted out for me to review?"

She set the small stack on the corner of his desk, out of the way of his little machine, and was further pleased to see the moment of surprise on his face. "This," she said. "Everything else is outdated, unworkable, irrelevant, or otherwise useless. These are the only ones I found that may be of use, and this," she added, presenting him with a single sheet of paper, "was what I didn't understand."

He took the stack of papers, and set them aside in a drawer. She waited patiently in front of his desk, hands clasped in front of her, expression demure. "As I thought," he said, "not enough of use to justify this mess." Mannie gave her a hard look. "And what do you want now?"

_You're a Lilim,_ she wanted to say. _You tell me what I want._ But instead, she said, "I have a question." Aglaya waited for a beat. "I asked what that did, and you said nothing. So, if you would tell me. What is it for?"

"This?" His hand moved near the machine, with something she could almost call gentleness. "It does nothing at all, and it does it very...efficiently." When he spoke about it, his face softened at the edges. To think that even among those who worked for That One, her new Superior she couldn't yet bear to consider, demons too would have their own projects. "It moves. I put a little energy in, and it moves." The Lilim nearly smiled. "And I consider it, and from time to time I discern how to put in _less_ energy, and...still it moves."

"Always more efficient."

"Precisely. I haven't adjusted the design in a decade, now, but." Mannie picked the machine up, set it down back in its corner. "There is always a way to reduce energy loss."

"Perpetual motion--"

"Is only the dream of those who don't know better." He shrugged. Seemed almost human. It made her chest ache to think that. Humans had broken her once, could break her again if she weren't careful. Better to think of him as the demon he was and not anything more. "But to see how close the equation can ride towards the line without ever meeting it..." Mannie stopped. She could see the mask pulling back on. He'd said too much, in front of someone untrustworthy. "You want to work on the actual project."

"I'll never prove myself if I only sort files. Sir."

His smile was a practiced thing, and she could relax at the sight of it. "Vera won't like it, but no one likes Vera, so this bothers me not at all. You'll owe me."

"I do realize this, sir."

"Very well." He scribbled out a note, and passed it over. "Take this to Vera, and when she stops being directly insulting she'll show you what we're doing. Don't break anything, or I'll have your hide. We can't afford any more delays."

"I understand, sir."

"Have you ever seen the end of a project that, ah, did not fully match the specifications as presented? I don't think you understand. If you're lucky, you won't for some time, and then only from a distance. If you're unlucky...be unlucky distant from me."

She nodded. "I'll do my best, sir."

"Be competent, and I'll be amazed." He waved her away, back to irritation and dissatisfaction. Aglaya left with the note in hand. They would give her work to do, and she could forget herself in it forever.


	5. In Which I Resolve Differences Of Opinion Through Sound Logic And Applied Thought

We've found it's easier to lie down and look up than to stand up and try to stare at the machine from an angle while standing, so I'm flat on my back, taking notes, while the machine continues its endless cycle above me. I can see Nosha from here, sprawled out in a similar position against the floor. From my point of gravity, she's up and to the left; from her position, I appear to be up and to the right. There must be someone in the Halls of Progress who's built a sphere with these sorts of gravity constraints, and when I have time I'd like to try experiments within this framework.

Teresa walks by in the distance, standing out in a peculiar right angle to a floor that, from here, looks like it ought to be a wall. She stops to adjust the sensors and take another reading. I could lie here forever, spend a century studying this machine surrounded by competent coworkers with similar interests. It's perfect.

My phone rings, a garbled little jingle in this place. It's been growing more erratic the longer I stay here; apparently its insides aren't compatible with this plane. Definitely a flaw to take up with the Sparkies who worked on it, once I get back home.

"Hello?" I prop my notebook against one knee so that I can write one-handed.

"Mannie? How's the job going?" Kai's breathless enthusiasm comes across so well even through a staticky line that I know she's bursting with something she wants to talk about.

"Quite well, Kai. And yours?"

"It's amazing. Tracked down the baby Tether, and it's--okay, it's a bit weird, and I'm not really up on all the details, this isn't my area of study, but it's definitely here. Lashing all over the place, at least two parts of Heaven and one in Hell, from what I've felt just standing there. And one place in the Marches, which wasn't something I expected, though I guess it makes a bit of sense, considering who formed it."

"Who formed it?" I sketch a set of wires that tangle without ever touching directly. "You've determined the cause already?"

"It's hard to miss, Mannie. All the work of one kid, he's seriously messed up, I can see why the Boss wanted someone here to help. He's building this sort of machine that he used to see in dreams, bizarre all around, and the locus is right in the center of the machine. It might expand as the machine grows, I don't know, but he's been working on it for months."

"What kind of machine?" I pause in the middle of a line. Hints of Lightning there, and Jean would...appreciate the tactical advantage of adding another Tether to his Word, of course. "What does it do?"

"I have no idea. Neither does he, that's half the weirdness right there, he's just following what he saw in his dream. Looks like a big mess to me, but most of the insides of cars look like that to me too, so I figured you'd know better. I took a few pictures, not sure how well they'll come across on this line."

"Send them over, and I'll--" I stop as the connection turns into a high-pitched whine in my ear. Loud enough that Nosha rolls over to look, and above me the wires flicker as they absorb the vibrations and convert them into bits of energy. So far we've only determined that the added power flows towards the center of the machine, which comes as a surprise to none of us. 

After a moment the whine stops, and pictures snap across the phone's tiny screen. Most of them are too dim and fragmented to be anything more than images of metal bits soldered and wired into place. Two are perfectly clear, several nothing but a dark haze.

I put the phone gingerly back to my ear, and flick back and forth between the two clearer photos, sketching them out on paper for a better idea of what the pieces are. "It doesn't look like anything I can recognize, Kai. I'll see what I can come up with."

"Thanks! Hey, I need to run, Sirius wants to go over security procedures with me, and I ought to pick up lunch. Catch you later, thanks again."

I stand up, and smile. "I think having an assignment suits that Ofanite," I tell Nosha, walking across the faintly curved floor to sit beside her. "Not that she was unhappy with the Windies, but there's a certain amount of focus that was missing before."

"It's good to have a job," says Nosha. She sits up, cross-legged. "What sort of machine is this? Something to do with the Tether?"

"That's what I'm told." I pass across the sketches. "I couldn't get many good pictures, but I was hoping you'd recognize these, or be able to extrapolate a function. It looks more like sculpture than machinery to me."

Nosha chews on a braid, and traces the lines of the first sketch. "I can see what you mean. What's the point of having a gear there when it's only turning that one? Maybe with a picture of the whole thing... Of course, a sculpture might be up Eli's alley. Perhaps it's trying to be a Tether to Creation."

"There has to be more to it than sculpture if it's jumping between angelic and infernal. Especially if it's stopping off at the ethereal plane now and then."

"Is it?" Nosha frowns, and flips the page. "Oh."

"Oh? Oh, what?"

"Oh, you _really_ want to look at this, Mannie." She leaps to her feet, and goes running off across the sphere's insides.

I follow along, if at a more sedate pace. I try to save my running for when there's something chasing me; it's not dignified. Nosha, for her part, has moved on to skipping, and by the time I reach her she's bouncing on her toes in one place. "Look at what?"

"This." She flops down on her back. I lie down beside her, and follow where she points. "Okay, see where those two gears there are turning together? And how there's a gap that comes up every third rotation, to the area behind?"

"Yes, I see it, but--"

"Wait."

The gears turn silently against each other, every third rotation of the smaller gear two gaps meshing perfectly to show a fraction of the next layer inside. Again, and again...

And then, for a moment, a pendulum that swings slowly behind the gears has moved out of the way at just the right moment, showing me a layer deeper--

"It matches."

Nosha laughs. "It does. It _does_."

I take the notebook back, and compare the picture to what I saw. "Whoever's building the one down there doesn't have the exact right materials, the angle's not precise, but it _matches_."

"Your Ofanite's Tether leads to someplace ethereal from time to time? I think I know where." Nosha sits up straight. "And now I'd really like to see what's inside the center of this place. If the Tether down there is leading to the center, there must be something here that can call it. There may well be an ethereal that lives in the center, feeding off the energy passed through the machine..." She frowns. "How would that even work? It's not Essence, it's only dream-energy, though I can see it feeding off that in a conceptual manner rather than drawing actual power. The Malakite might know more about how these things work--"

"Nosha, listen. It's someone trying to recreate a perfect machine. One that's not going to be able to work on Earth, I don't know if it could even in the appropriate gravity structure. Where else do you think that Tether's going?"

The Elohite stares at me for a moment, and then grins widely. "I can guess a number of places, from Dreams to Creation, but I know of one we have reason to particularly want to see it settle on. Should it be so inclined." She leaps to her feet. "We need to discuss this with Teresa. And Gariel. And compare the location to our Tether-maps. If there's even a chance this puppy flickers into the Halls of Progress on its rounds, we want to get it stabilized. Especially if it's been dipping infernal as well."

"Exactly what I was thinking." We make our way towards Teresa with her instruments, past the Malakite sharpening one of his knives. "Nosha, even if it doesn't touch on Lightning, only Creation, think of that. This human is building the machine from inside-out. It won't be a perfect image, but we can take a look at the insides of all this, in static form."

"What's this, then?" asks Amets, suddenly beside us. That Blandine gives her Malakim the ability to disappear in the Marches is reasonable; that he'd use it against us annoys me.

"It's unlikely to be the concern of Dreams," Nosha says. "We're only discussing--"

"A wild Tether that might be reaching towards this Domain." The Malakite smiles wolfishly. "I have good hearing. And you don't think that such a thing might be connected to Dreams?"

"I thought your Superior was largely unconcerned with Tethers," says Teresa dryly. She turns off a monitoring panel.

"Not pursuing them to the ridiculous lengths, true. But hardly unconcerned." Amets has gone shadowy around the edges of his image, looking entirely Malakite. Even after all these months, it makes me uncomfortable to see one of them like that. "Though Lightning would have to pursue Tethers at every opportunity, considering how many you must rip apart before they're tamed with the noise you make on the corporeal plane. No sense of _subtlety_."

Nosha and I take a few steps away, while Teresa prepares her own retort. "Oddly enough," I say, quietly, "it's comforting to see this."

"Oh? How so?" Nosha plays with one of her braids, frowning. "I can see little of comfort in these arguments. No one involved intends to change opinions, or even to convince the other of a position. They only rehash the same insults and accusations."

"It lends a sense of reality to the proceedings. And reminds me that angels are not, ah, entirely paragons of selflessness and ultimate good." I shrug, and listen to Amets adding pointed insults about science in general. If Teresa tries to hit him, she won't get far, and I don't think he's the sort to resort to violence against other angels without better cause than an argument. "I'd prefer a realistic view to an idealistic one. Less chance of disappointment."

"There's something to be said for idealism." Nosha laughs. "But I'm not the one to say it. Come, let's give Gariel a call while they're still going at it."

I flick open my phone and pull up Gariel's number. Nothing but static. "It's not ringing. Did they even test this on the ethereal plane, or just put it together and hope for the best? Bloody incompetent idiots."

Nosha raises an eyebrow, a very Elohite expression coming from a little girl in overalls. "Making complex equipment that can work between planes is a delicate science, and resources are always limited. Though if you think so little of their work, we can find tools so that you can fix the problem yourself."

I put the phone away. "You're right. This isn't even an area I've studied; I've worked largely on corporeal projects, and nothing that was meant to function across planes. I have no place to criticize."

"But you do have an excellent place from which to make notes for the team working on those," Nosha says. "They'll appreciate the field-testing. And perhaps the next version will have fewer of these flaws."

"I can hope so." Teresa and Amets have not progressed to name-calling yet, but she's snarling through clenched teeth, her hands curled into fists, and he's an angel-shaped dark cloud. "Calling is out. What do we do now? Send someone back with the news?" I blink, and cover my face in my hands. "Or I call Kai and ask her to pass on a message, since she _has_ the phone number for Gariel. And I call other people idiots."

Nosha reaches up to pat me on the shoulder. "Relying on other people can be difficult. Even if you know you can do that, turning to others for help won't be your first instinct for some time."

Amets abruptly breaks away from the conversation, and flows over in our direction. Predatory and dark. I don't want to stand in his path. "We'll have to leave," he says. "A Tether in here, so close to that Domain, could be...unpleasant. You don't want the inhabitants of the Domain we passed on the way here to have such easy access to the corporeal plane."

Teresa snorts. "As if anything could crawl inside that machine, if a Tether has been stopping in here? Safe enough, I think."

"There are things," says the Malakite, choosing his words carefully, "that you would not want to meet, which could flow through that place like water. It isn't safe until the Tether is tamed for Heaven."

"Then let Lightning take care of it--"

"And what if it isn't a Tether to Lightning? What if it's to Dreams?" Amets shakes his head. "What if it's for _Creation_? Do you want to count on being able to track down Eli and convince him to stabilize a little Tether for you, before anything here can take advantage of it, or Hell can claim it for their own ends?"

Teresa says, more irritably than before, "So if all else fails, send someone in to destabilize it and let the Tether scatter before anyone else can--"

"No. We can't do that." Malakite and Mercurian turn to stare at me. "My friend was given the job of helping this Tether grow and turn angelic, not to destroy it because it's _simpler_ for someone else than to deal with the implications."

"That's understood," Amets says, "but we have to consider the possibility--"

"And do either of you know where the other end of this Tether is?"

Three of them silent around me. Nosha's gone Elohite blank at me; I don't know what she thinks of all this. No doubt she'll speak up if she has a serious objection.

"No? Then you can keep your possibilities to yourself for the moment." I pull out the phone and dial Kai's number.

Nothing but static. So much for that idea. "My phone isn't working at all anymore. I don't suppose anyone here knows the Celestial Song of Tongues?" No one leaps up to claim that ability. "So we pack up and head back, and then take a look at this little wild Tether, if it's still together by the time we can get to it. And work out what to do with it _then_. Any objections?"

"You're correct that I don't know where this Tether is," Amets says. "But I _cannot_ leave it to your hands to deal with, not while it may be a link to this place. My Lady would not approve."

"And what would you have me do? Take you down there to scout out the place yourself?"

"Precisely."

Nosha ought to be speaking out by this point, telling me how I ought to be doing things. But she only watches me, no hint of advice in child eyes. And Teresa, who should be snarling about all of this, watches me as if...I'm in charge.

It is perhaps unfortunate that I developed the habit of taking charge in the midst of arguments, if only so that things would get done. "Escort us back safely, and I'll take you to meet with the angel who's guarding this Tether, or at least give you a location and put you in contact with her. Acceptable?"

Amets nods, briefly. "If you can keep your word."

"I promise." I can feel the Geas settle down around me. I laugh, for what little amusement there is in this. "Lilim, Bright or not, can be counted on to keep their promises."

Amets turns away. "Tell me when you're ready to go."

We pack up the equipment together. Teresa hasn't said anything since I began the argument. I don't know if she's angry at me, and she's too close for me to ask Nosha. Nosha hasn't said anything either, only putting pieces back into the boxes.

We haul the boxes out of the Domain. Leaving the bright whirling machine behind feels like leaving a friend. It's only parts and motion, no reason to feel so attached, but it was...beautiful. The sort of thing I'll never be able to make myself.

Amets fades away to a ghostly image. "Stay close," he says, a thin sound in the not-air of the Marches. Teresa does exactly that, while I follow further behind, Nosha beside me. I'm not in the mood to be near their bickering if they start up again.

"You did fine," Nosha says, kicking up drifts of silver sand. "It wasn't the solution I would have chosen, but."

"I shouldn't have done that."

"Why not? Teresa and Amets weren't about to come to a reasonable agreement. And we do want to pass on news quickly, before Hell comes across the Tether."

"I'm not the one in charge, Nosha. I should have let you handle it."

She looks up at me, the case she's carrying incongruously large for the child image the Elohite's chosen. "How often were you in charge, before?"

"There were always people above me..." She isn't about to let me go with that answer. "Most always, Nosha. Even when I was buried somewhere near the bottom of an enormous project, there were always people working for me. My own projects aside." Not that I had time for many of those, a few hours here, a stolen week there... "And nothing ever got done unless I made it happen."

"That's how you felt, at least."

"Ah. True. There may have been competent people working for me, but if so, I never noticed." A flicker of memory. "Almost never noticed. There were a few, here and there."

"What did you do when you saw those?"

"Went out of my way to collect Geases and hooks, on the principle that repaid favors from such people would be more useful later." I could count up every owed favor I hold if I tried, even having trimmed every angel but one out of the collection. "Sometimes they were."

"And you never tried to assemble a team of these people?" Nosha tugs on one braid. "That's what I would have done."

"Why bother? Too much effort to see everyone reassigned at the whim of a supervisor, or to end up with a half dozen competent people grinding away at a useless dead-end project."

The Malakite raises a hand in front of us. "Hush," he says. He gestures to the trees on our right. Tall evergreens, and the wind that pushes them blows a chill across me. "Quickly," he adds, and he does not run, but his strides grow wider and brisker.

From beyond the trees, dogs bay. To call any noise in the Marches "unearthly" is tautology, but these dogs sound strange even here, as if they're calling out from throats made of copper.

The baying closes in faster than I would have thought possible, as if the Domain of trees has churned itself into folds to move the pack faster. Amets draws his sword. "If they come out of the forest," he says, in an ordinary voice as if this happens all the time, and perhaps it does, "run to the river and wait for me there. None of you know how to fight here."

"Actually--" My objection drowns in the copper-note chorus of doggish voices that pause at the edge of the trees, flickers of black and white and red.

An ethereal, appearance of a tall man with feathers growing from his hands and a black mask over the top half of his face, stops at the place where snow slides out from between the trees into the sand. His horse is white, with red eyes and a black mouth. "You travel far from your Domain, to places where you are weak," he says, without opening his mouth. "Would you join in the hunt?"

"We have no part in your hunt," says Amets, his sword straight in front of him. "And we have not entered your lands."

The ethereal considers this for a moment. "No matter," he says, and raises a hand.

Amets raises his sword, and moves forward, as hounds pour out from the trees.

Nosha and Teresa run. I ought to be right behind them, but I can't imagine a pack of hounds will do a single Malakite any good, no matter what experience he's had in this place. We can't find our way back without him; the only part of the Marches I know lies near Beleth's tower, and that information's a half century out of date.

Amets swings his sword in what surely aren't wild moves, broad though they are, fending off the hounds. I hold out my hand and imagine up a pistol. I never considered dueling anything but a fool's hobby, but certain skills were necessary for my first Role. This weapon is less real than the creatures attacking us, but in the land of dreams, reality is by and large in one's mind.

The weapon I've created looks like the one of the pair of dueling pistols I owned, an aristocrat's deadly little toys. If we were standing inside that Domain of trees and snow, they might not work under its rules, but horse and rider have moved beyond the snow, a heavy axe swinging towards where Amets deals with the dogs.

My first shot misses, nothing more than a warning. Members of the pack who'd been ignoring me in favor of the obvious threat start at the sound, divert their attention in my direction. Soon I'll be testing my speed against theirs, and find mine lacking; their nature is to catch fleeing prey. No matter. I dream up another bullet, and fire again. The smoke that pours out at every shot is ludicrously authentic.

This second shot catches the rider's horse between the eyes. Not as effective as a similar hit on a corporeal horse, but even this ethereal creature is discomfited enough to scream and buck at the damage. Its voice is as unnatural as that of the dogs, related to the scream of a real horse the way a schematic is to the mass-produced item. My third bullet catches it in the chest, and as it rolls to the ground the Malakite leaps on the hunter, sword glinting in the pseudo-sunlight from the Domain beyond.

I have dogs to worry about now, circling me with black teeth bared. No place to run, so I shoot one between the eyes to give them something to consider. Sadly, a pack like this won't take the loss of one member seriously; their strength lies in numbers, not individuality.

Amets shouts in a language I don't know, battle cry or challenge or whatever Malakim say when they're fighting. I've made it a point not to find out those sorts of details in person. I have more pressing concerns, as several dogs, I can't enumerate them in the middle of fighting, throw themselves at me from different directions.

I find ethereal combat always strange, to be stronger than I am corporeally, throwing my mind out against theirs even as we work with images of guns, teeth, fists. Though it's reassuring that years of disuse haven't left me any worse at this than before.

I kick a dog away in the face, hard enough for it to fall back howling, but another has its teeth digging into my leg, more snapping at me from the sides. I was, perhaps, better at avoiding such damage before I lost that ethereal Force. One of them falls back to lift its head and wail, an eerie cry that speaks of terror. It's nothing strong enough to affect me. I shoot another dog, and the one that tried to frighten me whimpers, turns and runs with its tail between its legs. 

Three dogs still on me, warier than before. The blood coming from my leg is nothing but a reflection of the damage to my mind, and that can be healed once I get home. They're hesitant now. I'm not. I kick out to send one moving back, shoot it as it's dodging that kick, and the other two decide to go running.

I walk over to Amets, as he struggles up from a place on the ground covered by the bodies of hounds. "I thought they'd be more dangerous," I say, and offer him a hand. His image shows no flaw, which tells me nothing of how much he may have been damaged. "Are you well?"

He ignores my hand, and regains his footing. The dogs' bodies already begin to melt away into mist and sand, and the horse has crumpled into a decaying skeleton. The hunter lies sprawled on the ground, his head a meter or so further away, mask still attached. "You were lucky," Amets says, "and this was only one hunter. If we'd encountered an entire party, this would have gone badly." He stoops to pick up the head of the hunter. "They'll remember your image."

"I have a knack for acquiring enemies in the Marches. Perhaps he can travel nearer Beleth's realm, and join the club of all the ethereals with reason to dislike me." I give a more nonchalant shrug than the situation warrants. "There's a reason I avoid entering the ethereal plane."

The Malakite's image has shaded towards something clear again, not as shadowy, and his face lingers in the realm of confusion. "You didn't seem at all reluctant to come here."

"It was the job given to me. Who am I to argue?" We walk away, Amets carrying that head in one hand. "And most of those who'd seek me out stay nearer Beleth's side of the Vale."

"So when you said you had experience in the Marches--"

"Don't ask. Please."

He laughs shortly. "I'm curious, now. This was when you were still a demon. What were you up to?"

"Experiments."

"You worked for Beleth?"

"Vapula. She might have approved of what we were doing, but not of us doing it. No friend of Technology. Not that she's the friend of anyone. We were only there a few months before things became, ah, more complicated than was considered worth the potential return. Not an unusual way for a project to be canceled."

"What sorts of experiments?"

"I'd rather not talk about it."

Amets considers me for a moment, and then lets the subject drop. "I'm surprised neither of your friends returned, when you stayed behind."

"Nosha would know it couldn't assist in this, and that returning would do nothing but put the both of them in greater danger. Besides, you told them to run, and you know this area better than they do."

Amets nods. He's doing me the favor of not fading into near-invisibility, a small concession to what aid I gave in the skirmish. "Elohim are ever adept at behaving in a most _reasonable_ manner, no matter what bonds of friendship would call them to do otherwise. I can never feel comfortable with an Elohite at my back; they'd trump all honor for what they consider the greater good, with no regrets. Doesn't it bother you, to work for a Superior who would sacrifice you in an instant if it would gain him an advantage he considered sufficient?"

"And what, your Superior coddles you and keeps you safe from danger? We are at war, or so I've been told. Everyone is expendable in the cause of the greater good."

"You don't say that as if you believe it, Gifter."

That title always touches me with guilt. I have nothing to give. "Perhaps I don't believe it yet. But this is why I have a Superior who can tell me where to go, rather than leaving me to what I think is best. I don't want the responsibility of determining the greater good."

"An Elohite will lie, cheat, steal, betray a friend, if doing so would serve what it thinks is best. And this doesn't _bother_ you? Not at all?" He's pushing. As if I ought to break down and confess Lightning suits me badly, or that I'm not cut out to be an angel just yet.

"Amets, you're a Malakite. You've spent very little time, I imagine, in the company of demons without trying to kill them." I stretch my arms, try to shake off the sting at the back of my mind from the damage that hound did. He's right that I was lucky to get away so easily. "I have been accustomed to my coworkers, supervisors, and underlings lying, cheating, stealing, and betraying me out of pique or boredom, and doubly so if it would get them the slightest potential gain. Elohim doing so for the greater good is refreshing. Compared to a Superior who might rip apart my Forces if I slipped up and called a botched project a failure rather than a mitigated success, serving an Archangel who would sacrifice me for the benefit of Heaven... No. It doesn't bother me. Not at all."

"I suppose that does put matters into perspective." Amets spreads his wings, black feathers glistening dark purple in their shadows, then pulls them back in. "You handled yourself well back there. For a Servitor of Lightning. But why did you shoot the horse and not the hunter? He was the greater threat."

"Force of habit. I'm more accustomed to running from combat than engaging in it. And when you need to run, taking out the pursuer's means of transportation is often the best way." I kick up a plume of silver sand to watch it drift back down at a hundred different speeds, each grain falling according to laws unlike those of corporeal physics. "I once ended up the only one escaping from a raid on the lab with my vessel intact, due to leaving a few surprises in the pursuer's car rather than trying to fight it out with individuals."

"An attack from Lightning?"

"No, Samingans. Technology and Death always got along poorly. At least in Heaven, for all that some Archangels may be at each other's throats, I haven't had to worry about anyone on my side trying to kill me."

We find Teresa and Nosha at the bank of the river. Teresa paces a tight orbit around the cases of equipment, and I can't help wishing Kai were here. My Ofanite would hate it in the Marches, though, slow and weak, helpless instead of ever ready for battle.

"Finally," says Teresa, and she stares at the head Amets carries. "You had to bring that along?"

"As long as I have the mask, that hunter won't return," the Malakite says, and he smiles sweetly at her. "The mask won't come off. Though I could take the time to carve it away from the head, if you'd prefer."

"Malakim." Teresa hauls up a case. "I suppose you felt left out without something to carry?"

Nosha takes up another case, and joins me in the trudging back towards the Vale of Dreams. "I cannot help but compare their interaction to the preliminary friendship rituals of children," she mutters to me.

I suppress a laugh; neither Mercurian nor Malakite would appreciate it, if they overheard. "At least no one has dipped anyone's hair in an inkwell yet. And they're not throwing things at each other. I suppose it's reasonable that a Mercurian would flirt like a human. How do Elohim express attraction?"

"It depends on the situation. We're usually direct about the matter, unless being so has potential to cause discomfort in the subject of our affection." She winds one braid around a finger. "Those of us in Lightning tend towards the more cerebral. We engage in complex debates, discuss hypothetical situations, ask people to lend assistance on an aspect of a personal project that they might find of interest."

I blink at Nosha. She gives me a bland smile, and skips ahead to walk beside Teresa.

Every time I think I've figured them out, angels surprise me.

I try my phone a few more times on the way back, get nothing but static. By the time we reach the foot of Blandine's tower, I'm not even getting that, and the time display has begun to blink 13:42 at me. "There will be pages and _pages_ of details to submit to whichever team works on these phones. With footnotes. And illustrations."

"Go all out and include a few graphs," Nosha says. Amets leads the way into the tunnel we used before, or one enough like it to make no difference to my eyes. "Might as well be thorough."

"And flowcharts."

"No need to be _cruel_ , Mannie."

At the top, Amets bows formally to us. "I need to speak with my immediate superior about this Tether," he says. "Where should I meet you?"

"If you come to the Halls of Progress, any reliever can show you to Mannie's office," Nosha says. "If you haven't arrived by the time we've decided who will be investigating, we'll send a message."

"The Halls of Progress? How unpleasant. But," he adds, with a wry expression, "not unfair. Until then."

My office hasn't changed since I left it, aside from a phone message left on top of a cup of coffee. This one is only half soaked; Maharang's getting better about that. I fish out the note and lay it out to dry. Then it's time to find a notebook and compile a list of bugs in my phone, which even back in Heaven refuses to function. By the time Nosha and Teresa have discussed the situation with Gariel, and he's come to a decision, I'll have these ready to submit. They're unlikely to allow me back on the corporeal plane, not with my Cherub in Trauma.

If I were an Elohite, I'd analyze my desire to go there, call it irrational and based on emotions, ignore it altogether. But I'm only myself, and I want to be there. To see Kai again, and the Tether that might or might not be something my Boss could make his own, to settle back into my comfortable vessel I've spent more time in than my celestial form.

"Well," says Zif, "I'm glad to see you stayed out of trouble while I was gone."

Hugging a quagga-shaped Cherub ought to be awkward and undignified. Somehow, it manages to be neither. "Zif!"

"Still my name, yes." She flicks one ear at me. I detach, stand back a half step. "How long _have_ I been in Trauma? I haven't checked a calendar yet."

"Months. I was worried." I sit down in my chair. Gravity, optional in this place, still wishes to assert itself against me. "It's nearly May."

"So long?" I'm not used to seeing her look concerned. "How time does fly when one is unconscious." Her ears lie flat, and then pull themselves back up again. "But it seems you've been safe enough. You've stayed here?"

"Ah. Aside from the one trip to the Marches, yes." Her ears lie flat again. "Which was nothing to worry about. I was in good company, and we only, ah, ran into one patch of trouble." One cannot lie in the language of Heaven, and my words carry overtones of how much trouble I was in, for all my efforts to reassure her.

"You still the Cherub of Judgment attuned to you--"

"...ah. Not anymore. He removed the attachment after Jean gave me my Choir attunement."

"Congratulations. But. They sent you into the Marches without any Cherub to guard you?" The last time I heard her tone grow so cold, she was about to go speak her mind to an angel who'd spoken unkindly to me, and Zif isn't the sort to do anything angrily without great provocation. "I will have to have _words_ with Gariel."

"I've missed you, Zif." What I've wanted to say for months, and not half of what I ought to tell her. 

"It is healthy to form attachments to other people, and to need the presence of others," she says, her ears slowly relaxing. To be a counselor again might distract her from an argument I'd rather she not have on my behalf. "I hope that you have not felt isolated in my absence."

"There are other people who will listen if I need to speak. There are others who would speak in my defense if they thought it necessary. And there are others who would try to protect me. But I missed _you_ , Zif. I, ah, care for you." My smile should be friendly and true, not this lopsided one I'm wearing. "Friendship is still new to me. Please forgive me if I presume."

"I would be glad to have you as a friend as well as my attuned, Mannie." She steps forward to look over the notes on my desk. "You _have_ been busy while I was away. Good. How has your work been progressing?"

"Moderately well, though the most recent project is complicated. You have the most fortuitous sense of timing; I'm about to request that they send me to Earth, for investigation of a potential Tether with ties to the project. Would you be willing to, ah, lend your support to my request?"

"If you'll agree to keep away when demons begin destroying things, yes," she says. "I don't intend to let you run into rooms ahead of me again. Personal attachments are all very well, but you shouldn't let them overwhelm your intellect."

"You're sure you're not an Elohite."

"Hooves, Mannie." She stamps one to demonstrate.

"There's always Numinous Corpus..." The snort she gives me is entirely equine. I smile at her, and turn back to my desk. "This note is illegible. Where is that reliever when I--"

"You're back!" The reliever flap in my door slams open as Maharang darts through. "Hey, boss, did you get my note?"

I hold up the wet bit of paper to demonstrate.

"...oops. Sorry about that! Not on the coffee cup, right? Except if I put it in the middle of your desk there are all those _other_ pieces of paper and I wouldn't want the note to get lost, but if I put it on the coffee cup you're sure to notice." Maharang lands on my shoulder, and scratches its head. "Maybe if I turned the coffee cup upside down first? Except then I'd get coffee everywhere. I bet I could design a lid for the cup, though!"

"The note, Maharang. Do you remember what it said?"

"Oh! Sure. That was from Kai. Said she couldn't get through on your phone, so she called Gariel, and he told her it was probably just the Marches interfering with the lines if the problem was no ring and not no answer, and not to worry, so then she asked to be passed to me, and I got to take the message!" The reliever poses proudly for a moment. "And I took the message and left it on your cup, which of course I shouldn't have done, but the lid design shouldn't be too hard."

"The message, Maharang." I do believe Zif is trying to hide a smirk.

"Oh! Right. Kai says hi, and how are you doing, hope your project is going well, and by the way would you make sure not to mention her current job or location to Judgment because she needs to work out a teensy little related issue that having them show up might not be ideal for, thanks very much, and Lin called her to remind her to remind you about the Bright Lilim Tea Party scheduled for a week from Friday so don't forget to attend if you're back in Heaven at the time because you wouldn't want to disappoint Lin would you?" The reliever pauses, and looks thoughtful. "Also we talked for a while about cooking, but that wasn't part of the message. I gave her a recipe for chocolate chip cookies, though, and she told me about how to set hard-boiled eggs on fire. Or not set them on fire, I forget which."

"Kai...doesn't want me to mention her current assignment to Judgment."

"Yup!"

"Kai. Who hugs Judges. Who breaks Seraphim's brains without even _trying_ by being too helpful. Who offers investigating triads tea and cookies."

"Exploding tea!" Maharang adds, enthusiastically. The reliever is at that age when all explosions are something to be enthusiastic about.

"...I'm sure that part isn't deliberate. And she called to tell me specifically not to mention her job to Judgment?"

"And to remember the party!"

"...ah. Of course." I blink helplessly at Zif. "You understand why I need to get down there."

"At this point, even I'm curious." Zif nods. "I'll support your request. So long as you don't run into rooms full of demons before me."

"Deal."


	6. Intermission: Milwaukee, Wisconsin. February.

"So I'm the only one disturbed by this."

Jack patted Sharon on the shoulder with his free arm. His other arm was occupied with helping Kai walk. "You'll get used to it. And we all came out of that alive, so it's all good."

The human gritted her teeth. "Why do _I_ have to carry the foot?"

"Sorry," said Kai, from the other side of Jack. "I could try carrying the box--"

"No! No, I can...I can take care of it." Sharon hefted the box and tried not to think about what was inside it. The snow they'd packed in was seeping through the cardboard, turning her cold hands wetter and colder.

"True," said Nip. She still had her arms full of all the folders they'd been toting about. "I'm not looking forward to the next time we run into Judgment."

"Hey, I thought they were demons!" Jack hauled Kai along, and sighed. "There has _got_ to be a better way of twigging demons than 'Oh, hey, they're evil and using Songs.'"

"Such as waiting for Kai or I to hit one, and seeing if there's any disturbance to be heard?" Nip asked. "Or noticing that all the Songs they were using were corporeal, or--"

"Okay, so I was hasty. But, hello, smiting evil, protecting the innocent from danger. Give me a little credit here." Jack poked Kai, who swayed in his grip. The Ofanite was doing a remarkably good job of walking for someone missing a foot and large quantities of blood, but there were limits even to angelic fortitude. "You understand, right?"

"Oh, sure. The bit where you threw that guy across the room was marvelous. In retrospect, a bad idea, but it looked great." Kai grinned across Jack at Sharon. "You did a good job yourself, you know."

"I screamed my head off and kicked a vampire in the knee, Kai. I'm not sure that counts as a good job." Sharon shifted the box under one arm, and tried to wipe the soggy cardboard bits off her sleeve. "Compared to you going all Jackie Chan with a door knob."

"It was at hand. And you did fine! The screaming distracted them, as did the kicking."

"And then I accidentally kicked Nip--"

"But not hard! So that's an improvement."

Nip swung an arm around Sharon's shoulders. "Face it. You're starting to get used to this."

"And ten gives you one, she was having fun back there."

Sharon rolled her eyes. "Oh, come on. I'm up for fighting evil as much as the next clued-in human with half a brain, but that doesn't mean I was..." She faltered under Nip's smirk. "Okay, so in _retrospect_ I enjoyed myself. A little." She no longer hesitated when the others wandered across the street against the light, but looked both ways as she followed. "There has to be a better way to do this than bursting into the room and beating things up until the evil goes away."

"We did shout 'Candygram!' on entering," said Jack. "So it's not just bursting into the room."

"You shouted that, and..." Sharon paused, and recalled the several startled faces that looked back at them for a moment. "You are _not_ telling me that was part of a clever plan."

"That's Windies for you. Always with a clever plan." Kai snickered, and stumbled in the snow. "Ow. Curb."

"Although sometimes the clever plan only consists of 'run'," Nip added. "But there's a place in the Symphony for people bursting through the door with guns. Or door knobs."

"It was a very shiny door knob!" Kai said enthusiastically, stepping away from Jack, and nearly fell face-first before the Mercurian caught her. "It did great damage, and thus it was holy. Though not so holy as caffeine. Could we stop for coffee somewhere? I could really go for a mocha, and maybe a sugar cookie if the place has them, or even one of those oatmeal cookies with the raisins in it, as long as it's not a really crunchy one, because oatmeal cookies ought to be chewy. Thus saith the Lord. Ow. Fire hydrant."

"We get your foot re-attached, _then_ we get coffee." Jack frowned. "If we could just find that Flowers Servitor... Where else does one of those go? We checked the children's museum, three parks, the zoo, and the vintage records shop."

"We could check a coffee shop," Kai suggested.

"Hey, who's in charge here?"

"You are," Kai admitted, "but wouldn't your Boss approve of a daring mutiny where power is wrested from the stagnant order in favor of the idealistic new regime?"

"...maybe. And I am not stagnant!"

"It was only a hypothetical, Jack. But if we don't stop soon, my pants are going to rip and the shoe will fall off. I didn't have much to work with, and I keep getting snow inside the shoe. Did you know that having cold snow running past parts of your body that usually aren't exposed to the air is _really_ uncomfortable?"

"Which is why we're looking for Lily, who's supposed to be able to fix you. Now stop whining and try to walk faster."

Sharon juggled the box to her other arm. "Hey, puppy," she said, as a sleek yellow dog came sauntering up to her, tail wagging. "What are you doing out in the cold alone?" The dog had a collar, but no dangling leash to indicate someone chasing.

The world vanished, replaced by a dreamy haze.

Sharon blinked, and she was sitting on a couch in a coffee shop, a mug of hot chocolate clasped in her hands. "Here," Kai said, passing her a cookie. "They don't have sugar cookies or oatmeal ones, but the chocolate chip cookies have little toffee bits." The box was gone, and from what she could see Kai's left shoe wasn't stapled to her pants anymore.

She drank down the hot chocolate, just barely cool enough to not burn her mouth. "I thought Lily was a Mercurian."

"She is, and we haven't seen her yet. But a Kyriotate of Flowers noticed us back in the children's museum, and caught up once it could spare the Forces." Jack worked his way through a donut. "It had to finish a presentation on the water cycle first."

"Have I mentioned that I still find Kyriotates creepy?"

"That time in San Diego when you got a Shedite stuck in your head and we had to track down a Kyriotate to get it out," Nip said. She licked whipped cream off the top of her drink. "And then again in that little town in New Mexico, during the incident with the ice cream shop. I believe your opinion on this matter has been well established."

"Well. Just so long as that's clear." Sharon dunked the cookie she'd been given into her hot chocolate. "New rule. Every time I get a celestial stuck in my head, I get to choose our next activity. Fair enough?"

"Sounds fair to me," said Kai.

"You would say that." Jack swiped Kai's cookie while the Ofanite was distracted by the conversation. "Sharon always chooses activities you approve of."

"You're only annoyed because she beat you at DDR." Kai grinned over her chai. "Admit it."

"She got _lucky_."

"It's all in the skill, baby." Sharon settled down on the couch, and smiled at them. Body parts might get detached, and havoc might lie in their wake, but some things never changed.


	7. In Which An Ofanite Is Unusually Perspicacious

When I finish the conversation and put away my phone, all three of them are watching me. Al's the only who's pretending to be focused on something else, fiddling with a wired joint; Polly and Sirius are content to stare. There's a reason I've learned the fine art of keeping half-conversations innocent-sounding. "So, Al," I say, "what do you think?"

"That was your boyfriend?" He turns his back to me, pointedly working on his machine.

"As good a word as any for the relationship, sure." The mass of metal creates a perfect place to orbit, and when I keep moving, he can't keep his back to me. "He's...okay, if I say 'a nice guy' I'll give the wrong impression, but he's a scientist. He gets this sort of stuff."

"I don't want anyone else working on this. It's _mine_."

"I understand that, Al. I'm not going to let anyone touch it. They only want to take a look." From the other side of the machine, I can catch glimpses of his face as I pass. It would be easier to read his body language if his every posture didn't default to defensive hunching.

"I don't want them to see _me_."

"I won't let anyone in here without giving you warning ahead of time, and even then not for long." Passing behind him on the orbit, I pat him on the shoulder. He twitches, and drops a tool. Possibly not the right time for a hug. "My Boss gave me the job to protect this place, and right now you're part of this place, so my job extends to protecting you. I won't call in anyone who'd hurt you."

"I believe you," he says, "but... I mean. Look at me." He spreads his arms, stands in front of me in all his scruffy teenage glory. "What do you see?"

"Someone who's bought into the corporate advertising scheme, judging by your shirt," I say. "I've never understood the appeal of walking around advertising a clothing company. There's something redundant about it."

"Glowing! Horns!"

"Well, that too." I shrug, spin on one foot as long as he's taking the time to face me. It would be rude to keep walking when he's trying to hold a serious conversation. "But that's a matter of appearance, not of who you are."

"Yeah, and even _you_ jumped me when you first saw me. You think other people aren't going to react the same way?"

"Al, you threw tools at me." I sweep my way through a series of steps, nothing but a warm-up exercise I used for my intermediate classes. "Besides, I thought you were a demon at the time. And I did apologize."

"You run into many demons in your line of work?" He taps a wrench against his palm. "A line of work you haven't told me about yet. I mean, what are you, a demon hunter or something?"

"On occasion." I bow neatly to him, and return to my pacing. "I've had various jobs. Spent some time on a road trip with friends, worked a temp job as a secretary--"

"What, for a demon?"

"...yes. But that's beside the point. I used to teach ballet, which didn't involve any demons. At least, not in class." Dozens of names and faces, hundreds over the years, children and teenagers who came to class to learn how to make their bodies into art, or only to occupy their time. Several dead in one manner or another, two Soldiers of God, dancers and writers and bus drivers and teachers and parents. That vessel's long gone, and I've been given another job, no way to go back and trace the lives of those children anymore.

"You miss that job?"

"It's that obvious?" I give Al a half-smile from the other side of a set of gears. "I do. Had that job longer than any other."

"So what happened? Why did you quit?"

"Did a favor for a friend. Ended up away from my job for a few weeks, and then the favor I'd been doing got unexpectedly messy." Or maybe I should have expected it, should have known better, should have prepared myself so that I could have kept the Role and vessel. Who would be talking to Al right now if I were still back there? Maybe someone better equipped to deal with the job, but then that angel wouldn't be doing whatever job they're on now, and... I can't start second-guessing myself. What's past is past.

"So you're part of some sort of uber-secret organization that hunts demons and teaches ballet? What do you do for a _hobby_?"

I laugh at his skeptical tone. "We do more than that. But, as for me, my hobbies are cooking and driving fast. Having no functioning kitchen and no means of transportation faster than my own two feet, I'll settle for doing the laundry and picking up lunch. What do you want? Chinese?"

"I'm not in the mood for Chinese." He scratches the back of his head with the wrench. "Fortune cookies creep me out. Half of them don't even tell a fortune, they're just like 'You are a good person at heart' or something pointless like that. A real fortune cookie should say, I don't know, 'You're about to get cursed, don't make any long-term plans.' Or I'd even settle for 'Remember not to throw hammers at people until you've been introduced.'"

"That's a good life lesson there. Tacos fine?"

"Sure, so long as they don't put cilantro in them. I hate that stuff."

"No cilantro, check. Anything else before I head out?"

Al's shoulders curl in even further than before. "When's your, um, when are your friends showing up?"

"Not for hours; they'll need to work out transportation. Don't worry, I'll let you know when they're here."

He nods, and crouches down by series of wires he's been twisting into springs.

I collect laundry from the room where he's been sleeping, stuff it into his backpack, and head out through the basement door, asking the Symphony for directions to the nearest laundromat.

#

When sunset hits I'm sitting on the roof, Sirius beside me. "See, when the Earth rotates, that makes it look like the sun is going down. And the light comes in at an angle where it starts hitting dust in the atmosphere, and that's the sunset."

The ethereal hound cocks one ear. "Where I used to live, the sun was a tiny globe in the sky, and it rose or fell at the whim of the Lords of the Hunt. Sometimes it would split into pieces, and each piece would glow a different color." His tail thumps against the ground. "I followed my master to Earth for a hunt twice, both times at night. I could come to like sunsets. Do they happen often?"

"Every twenty-four hours, weather permitting. But if you think a sunset is great, you should see a sunrise."

"Spoken like a human who regains Essence at noon. I prefer nights, thank you." Sirius rolls over on his back, paws dangling in the air. "Kai, let me speak frankly. I worry about Al, and I fear that my old master will find me and drag me back. I couldn't refuse him, if he should call for me. If I leave him, will you watch Al? He's given me this chance to be here, and I cannot repay him."

"I'll try." All the sunset's gone red and gold; the darker colors approach at the edges. "I have other loyalties, but so long as he doesn't turn evil on me, I'll try to protect him."

"Thank you." Sirius rolls back onto his stomach, and props his head on my leg. "I can't help being loyal. It's one of my strands."

"I can understand that." He could no more resist his master's call than I could stand still when motion was called for. All of us ethereals and celestials tied up in essential concepts, while humans are free to spin as far from one end to the other as they dare.

"You're not human, are you, Kai?"

I scratch Sirius behind the ears. "Why do you say that?"

His tail thumps a rapid rhythm against the concrete of the rooftop. "My old master dealt with sorcerers. You know things that even the most powerful sorcerers garble, the proper names for things, and you don't treat it like hard-earned knowledge to hide or trade. Any sorcerer, finding someone of Al's power, would have tried to kill him as a rival or take him as an apprentice, but you've offered him protection while telling him to leave off sorcery."

"What do you think I am, Sirius?"

He considers this. "I would call you a servant of Nightmares, but you are, if I may say so, insufficiently subtle. Few other demons would truck with sorcerers casually without pushing Al further towards power. You could be an ethereal, but you speak confidently of a larger organization, and few of my sort have allies to call up on a whim. I believe you serve the Host. Is this true?"

I push his head off my leg gently, and stand up. "I'm no Seraph. I try to keep my word, but you can't trust that everything I say is true."

The hound pads along behind me as I circuit the dead gardens of the roof. "You are an angel. A human would claim her own humanity and be done with this, but even if you're no Seraph, you're trying not to lie to me. Who do you serve?"

"Now you're asking the really _personal_ questions." I don't want to have this discussion with him, not when it means I'll need to think harder about what I'm going to tell the next triad I see. Judgment isn't fond of ethereals on Earth, in much the way Malakim aren't fond of Balseraphs.

"There aren't many of your masters--your Archangels, who would let their servants deal with ethereals on friendly terms. You can't be serving the Wind, for you've been here more than three days. One who was serving Flowers wouldn't have attacked that child downstairs, not even when provoked. Only a few options remain."

"You're remarkably well-informed for a dog, Sirius."

The ethereal makes a barking sound I translate as laughter. "My old master was loaned out to Beleth from time to time, when the Lords of the Hunt deemed it appropriate. Demons are liars, but one can learn a remarkable amount by listening quietly, especially when the speakers cannot see past my image. I had a long time to learn."

"And yet you didn't know the Earth orbits the sun, and not the other way around." I sit on the roof's wall as darkness creeps in around us. "All that time, and you didn't learn that much?"

"Well." Sirius sits in front of me, and scratches himself. "I was paying more attention to some things than others."

My phone chimes at me. "Hello?"

"We've reached the city," Mannie says, "after a few, ah, slight delays to make sure everyone was in appropriate attire. We'll reach the coffee shop in about twenty minutes."

"Great," I say, and wonder how I'm going to explain this. "I'll meet you there."

I put away the phone, and look down at Sirius. Even in dim lighting no one could mistake him for an ordinary dog. "When they come over--"

"I'll be out of sight." Sirius wags his tail, standing up. "Come, Kai, I'm no fool. Unless they threaten Al, I'll approach no strangers without good reason. And I'll make sure Polly stays out of sight as well, which is never difficult with her."

"Good dog."

"Thank you."


	8. In Which A Strange Conversation Occurs

Amets won't stop tugging at his T-shirt. "People really wear these things."

"Around here, they do." Zif drives entirely unlike an Ofanite, staying at the speed limit and observing every sign. "Surely you've seen such attire in dreams."

"Of course, but I see all sorts of outfits in dreams, some impossible on the corporeal plane, and many highly impractical." He sighs, his vessel's age lending an air of petulance to the sound. "I was fond of Edwardian dress."

"Perhaps you should get to the corporeal plane more often," I suggest. "To keep up with how these things change."

"I have better things to do with my time than maintain a Role. It's not my calling." Amets stares out the window in the back seat, nose pressed up against the glass like a child even younger than his vessel would indicate. "I will admit that cars travel faster than horses. But I'm not fond of staying long on this plane. Everything feels...awkward. Like I'm slower and weaker."

"I know the feeling." I set aside the journal I've been browsing, one I picked up back at the Tether while we were trying to get Amets's vessel into something passable for a modern thirteen-year-old boy. There's nothing in there that I haven't heard about, or in some cases disproven.

"How do you deal with combat on the corporeal plane, knowing that you're weaker here than in the Marches?" Amets leans forward between the seats to ask this, looking up at me with sharp dark eyes.

"I run away."

"Typical."

"You would do better to run away more often," Zif says to me, not taking her eyes off the road for an instant. "I seem to recall two separate incidents of you running _into_ groups of demons. Ahead of me."

"There were extenuating circumstances, Zif." Though on reflection, at least in the second instance, I was acting more hastily than justified.

"You have a strange definition of running away," says the Malakite.

Zif snorts in a manner more suited to her Cherub form than her professionally-dressed vessel. "Tell me about it."

Kai's recommended coffee shop is so far away from corporate that it's nearly fallen into anarchy. There's a main room filled with mismatched tables and chairs, and then half a dozen doorways to side rooms of more comfortable, and more private, seating. Zif takes a brisk look around the shop, and then leads us back between groups of patrons with laptops, notebooks, stacks of textbooks, to one of the side rooms.

Kai grins as we come in, and darts forward to hug me. She somehow avoids pouring her drink down my back, though I can't imagine how. "Hi," she says. "Good to see you. And, hey, Zif! It's been a while. How are you doing?"

"Well enough." Zif sits down, and the rest of us follow suit. "Kai, this is Amets, Malakite of Dreams. Amets--"

"Kai, Ofanite of Lightning, I know," he says, waving away the introduction.

"Lightning? Where'd you get that idea?" Kai laughs, and starts handing out drinks. "Coffee, chai, coffee--you do like coffee, right?" She's already dropped in as much sugar and cream as I like. Odd, how the smallest touches of consideration can feel so important.

"Black," says the Malakite, taking the cup.

"That's what I thought."

"I'd assumed--"

"That I was Lightning? Nah, I don't have the brains to be a Sparky." Kai settles back with her own drink. "Creation. Anyone want a cookie?" We decline, and she takes a bite of the one she was offering. "Anyway," the Ofanite continues, around a mouthful of crumbs, "thanks for coming by. I'm kinda weirded out by the whole situation, and in over my head. No idea what to do at this point. Okay, some idea, but my working plan is more of a holding pattern than a flight plan."

"Start at the beginning," says Zif. "Summarize. We can ask for more details as needed from there."

"Right. Well." Kai drinks her mocha more slowly than usual, staring off into space. "Did I mention this is kinda complicated?"

"I believe we've gathered that," says Amets dryly. "Would you like to explain how?"

"Um. Starting from the beginning. My Boss calls and gives me a job to find this particular Tether, protect it, and make sure it stays pointed towards Heaven, right?" She takes another bite of cookie. "And he says it's not going to be his, no matter what. So. I found the Tether, sent Mannie pictures, and you're all here now and we can figure out who the Tether belongs to and get it taken care of."

"And the complicated part?" Zif asks.

"Yeah. You know how I said it was the work of one kid, putting this thing together?" Kai frowns into her mocha. "That's the start of the complicated part, because he's, um, Gorgon, I think."

"You _think_?" Amets says, more sharply than he has cause for.

"Well. It's possible his mom was mistaken about the nature of his father, or lying to him, and he's actually Nephallite. But it's not often you meet a human with horns and a green glow about him."

Zif touches one finger to her forehead, as close as her vessel gets to indicating stress on her part. "You're sure he isn't a demon masquerading as a human?"

"Thought he was a demon at first. Hit him. Hello, disturbance." Kai's face has slid into a near-mope. "Can't believe I did that right by the Tether... I'm lucky it didn't break apart."

"Kai," says Zif, in one of her more neutral counselor voices, "I can see how this could complicate matters, but I don't see why you wouldn't report this to Judgment. They won't hold a child's parentage against him, even if they will be anxious to track down his parents and prevent this from happening again."

"Well. It's a little bit _more_ complicated than that. Don't have to worry about his mother, she's dead from some ethereal she summoned up, or maybe a demon, it's hard to tell from his descriptions."

"His mother was a sorcerer?" Amets asks, sitting up very straight.

"Yeah. And. See, this is the _complicated_ part..." Kai trails off, and studies her mocha intently.

My coffee is getting cold. I take a sip. "He's a sorcerer too."

"Kinda. He's not doing anything with that at the moment, but..." Kai shakes her head. "I know that Judgment is _just_ , but they're, well, sometimes a little bit less than entirely reasonable on certain subjects. I can't blame them when it comes to sorcery, but he's an okay kid, just one that got screwed over half a dozen ways by his parents. It's not his fault, and he doesn't even know that what he's doing is wrong. If I call them about this, things get messy." She breaks her cookie into fragments and crumbs, and I can tell she's worried when she's not eating the pieces. "If anything happens to Al, this Tether won't last long. It's his baby."

"The first order of business is to get that Tether stabilized," says Zif. "If it dissolves, much of this debate becomes moot. Should it be discovered while its upper end rests in Hell, the current situation would become even more complicated. You don't know what Words it links to in Heaven?"

"No, I haven't been able to get any clear reading. If the Boss hadn't said it wasn't his, I'd think Creation. As it is? Lightning, Dreams..." She shrugs, and sets down her long-empty mug. "I'm glad all of you are here. I'm not an expert in Tethers. Or sorcerers. Or ethereals."

"What _are_ you good at?" Amets asks, not as rudely as he might have spoken to a Sparky, but not so politely that the urge to smack him is easy to resist. 

"Dancing. Driving. Doing serious damage with unusual objects. Quoting famous playwrights and poets." Kai gathers the crumbs of her cookie. "Not cooking, according to my last triad. Metaphysics and the Marches, no. What did you do, in your last assignment on Earth?"

Amets tugs at his T-shirt. "There was a boarding school for boys. The headmaster was Hellsworn, he terrified them all, and the children could do nothing. I was sent to guard their dreams, to give them hope and courage against the cruelty. Why do you ask?"

"Perspective," says Kai. She stands up, and begins gathering napkins, empty cups. "I'll head back and let Al know you're here. He doesn't want to meet anyone, for obvious reasons. Stop by in about an hour, and I'll show you the way in. You can't go in through the front door. Wherever this Tether ends up going, we ought to look into buying the property. The place would still make a nice community center, if it got fixed up and a real staff. Or a museum, art gallery, something like that." Her tone has turned wistful, and I'm reminded of where she last worked. And whose fault it is that she's no longer there.

Then she's gone, and I'm left with Zif and Amets. The Malakite rips open a sugar packet to add to his coffee, despite his early claims. "I'm the only one here who knows the Song needed to hold a wild Tether stable until an Archangel arrives. Should this Tether be split between Dreams and Lightning, I must give my Lady the first opportunity to determine if it suits her needs."

"Admirable dedication," says Zif, "but not a practical solution for such a problem. Lightning is better equipped to guard and support a new Tether. We spend more time cultivating them in strategically useful positions."

"Is Lightning better equipped to support a Tether created by a Gorgon sorcerer, with ethereals lurking in the corners?" Amets drinks from his cup, makes a face, and adds another packet of sugar. "Servitors of your Archangel aren't in the habit of letting ethereals run free on this plane, in strict accordance with our Lord Commander's preferences."

"We can let them be if it is more useful to do so than to send them back to the Marches," Zif says.

Amets rolls his eyes; he seems to be adopting teenage mannerisms in his current vessel. "How very...Elohite."

"We try," says Zif, and I say nothing, nothing at all to this. "While I concede that you're more experienced with ethereals, we know more about Tethers."

"Quantity," says the Malakite, "does not equate to quality."

I stand up. "Forgive me if I step out of this debate." Zif begins to stand. "Don't worry, I'm not going far."

There's still a fair amount of money in my pockets, left over from when I was a demon. I haven't had much need to buy things on the corporeal plane since redemption. I get a fresh cup of coffee in a disposable cup, and head outside. Zif could find me anywhere I went, and she'll know if I'm in danger.

I haven't an Ofanite's sense of direction, so I wander down the street, looking into store windows as I pass. This area lingers on the fine line between the realm of struggling artists and ordinary low-income neighborhoods, too grimy to be the one and too full of single adults to be the other. 

The lingering unease at the back of my mind resolves into a focus, near the end of the coffee: Kai was too quiet and subdued for my taste. When my Ofanite is annoyed at something, he complains about it, moves on to another subject in the space of a few minutes, and leaves the mood behind. He must be seriously worried to lay out the problem to us like that, and then disappear again. I'll have to find a time to speak privately. Running around on the corporeal plane with no idea what one's Superior is up to or when you might hear from him again can't be good for any angel's state of mind. All the more so if Kai now feels the need to dodge Judgment, who he'd always relied on before.

But this might only be what he's like when he's on assignment for Eli. When Jack introduced us, I was a self-absorbed demon trying to figure out how to sneak away from a pack of angels without running into the Game, and he was taking time off of work to do a favor for a friend. By the time he got back to that job, I was wrapped up in myself for different reasons. This is the first time I've seen him working on a project given to him by his Boss.

And his project is to support a Tether that isn't even pointing towards Creation? No wonder trying to predict Eli gives Judgment headaches. Superiors are ineffable, but some of them make more of a point of it than others. With Jean, at least I know--

In the reflection of a window, a figure I haven't seen in two centuries. I manage not to react, only keep moving. If I were in danger, Zif would be running this way.

I stop at a light to cross the street and head back to where Zif and Amets are waiting. The demon's out of sight again, and I am so glad to have a Cherub attuned to me. For all that I'm trying not to let on that I've seen anything, my pace grows brisker as I move back towards the coffee shop. Having a Malakite nearby might prove more useful than I'd expected, even if Amets hasn't the strength that he does in the Marches.

"I should let you know that the weapon I'm holding would do a significant amount of damage to you," says a sweet voice from behind me, "so would you do me the favor of not making any sudden movements?"

"Good evening, Aglaya." I leave my hands out of my pockets. I have nothing dangerous in there anyway. Kai could do creative things with a few pens, a notebook, and a handful of change, but that's not one of my talents. I can wait until Zif arrives. Besides, if this weapon does damage to things besides me, the disturbance might weaken the Tether, and I'd rather not upset Kai. "It has been some time."

"Two centuries. Unless you count the conference we both attended. Or--well. I was in a different vessel that other time, so maybe you don't remember that one." One finger taps me in the back. "Forward, and into that shop on the right."

I move along at a leisurely pace. My hands want to wrap up inside my pockets, but I'd rather not be shot before Zif can arrive. "What brings you here?"

"I could ask you the same." The man behind the counter of the vintage clothing shop gives us a friendly smile as we enter. "James, do you mind if I use the back room? It's been a while since we last got together, and we have a lot of catching up to do."

"Go right ahead. I'm closing shop in half an hour anyway. Just remember to lock the door if you go out the back." He waves us along happily. Impudites always have the most enthusiastic human friends. "Try not to let the cat out."

"You're a doll. Thanks." Aglaya moves forward to wrap one arm around me, and escorts me into the back room. Boxes of unsorted clothing lie stacked around a small desk, and a calico cat lifts its head as we enter. "Now," Aglaya says, shutting the door behind her, "unless your new Archangel has been dropping Forces on you in a manner unlike standard procedure, we both know I'm stronger than you, faster than you, and, let us not forget, still holding this." I recognize the gun she waves at me. I designed it. A boring project, but a successful one. "So don't do anything stupid. I mean, that would be atypical of you, wouldn't it?"

I sit down on the desk and cross my arms. "Quite." I have no desire to take a shot from that gun, and where _is_ Zif? I would have heard the disturbance if anyone had sung up a shield to block her attunement. "I notice that you're not buying the Renegade story."

"Hell's propaganda works less well on one born in Heaven," Aglaya says, leaning back against the door. There are subtle changes in her appearance from the last time I saw her; a vessel lost, and her new one modeled after the old. She's a few centimeters taller, five years older in appearance, dressed in the eclectic style of the sort of person who would frequent a vintage clothing shop. She wears sunglasses inappropriate for the time of day, and entirely appropriate for any demon used to dealing with Lilim. It reminds me strangely of the first vessel I saw Kelly in. "I'm hardly about to gainsay the party line, but a Lilim running about with angels doesn't always mean Renegade demon." She brushes a piece of hair out of her face with her free hand. "They finally made sure everyone in the organization knew you were Renegade after the third lab went up in flames."

"Ice," I say. "The second one went up in flames. The third one was when the freeze-ray exploded." And that had been a small disappointment; I would have preferred to run off with the equipment to study and dropped a heavier load of dissonance on all the demons involved.

"Ah, quite right. I had the order reversed. What with those two being taken out less than a week apart." She laughs shortly. "There's been a general call for anyone you might have a hook on to report to their immediate supervisor for reassignment, to avoid tracking. Those who are smart enough not to say anything are considered intelligent enough to deal with the situation should you lead angels to them."

"And you'd be one of those who knows better than to report in." I spin one finger in the air, as if reeling in a hook attached to a string. "Or you wouldn't be here."

"You used all your hooks on me back in Russia, Mannie. I remember how complicated that became."

"I used up two; didn't have time or use for you, to use any more of them." I give her my practiced smile, the one she'll recognize. "You thought I didn't have more?"

Aglaya stares at me for a moment. "Foolish of me."

"Quite."

She sighs, and tucks away the gun. "Well, then. You have me at a disadvantage. You could Geas me before I was sure it was time to shoot." Which means she didn't intend to shoot me out of hand. I'm not comfortable with the idea that I'm in little enough danger that Zif hasn't even noticed. "May I ask how many? Or how strong?"

I sort quickly through the hooks waiting in the back of my mind, and find the ones labeled with her name. "A few small ones. Minor favors. One of the strongest."

"A year of my time." A trace of unease passes across her face. There's a number of things I could make her do that would put her in serious trouble with Vapula, the Game, or both. 

"If I asked for it. But I have no need for an untrustworthy Impudite as a servant, and Judgment _would_ look amiss at that sort of thing. I'm not ruling out the possibility, either." I pull out my notebook, making notes about what this encounter might mean. "Were you looking for me, or are you here on some other project?"

"Another project," she says. "A potential Tether to Technology. I was sent here to locate the wild Tether based on the gremlin's report, and determine if it had been correct or only trying to grab for favor. It's not very smart; doing something that stupid would be plausible." She smirks at my expression. "And, yes, I'm telling you about my current assignment. I suspect you're here for the same reason, so why do otherwise? Angels travel in packs, and no doubt you have a Cherub somewhere on your heels. I have no desire to lose this vessel in a vain attempt to find the place. I'll say the gremlin was lying or mistaken, and be done with it."

"Why draw me off here to talk, rather than reporting my location to the Game and being done with it?"

Aglaya shrugs. "Because they might decide to eliminate me as well to avoid information leaks about Bright Lilim? Because I'd rather stay out of their attention, and I know trying to curry favor with the Game is a fool's pastime? Or maybe I just wanted to talk for old time's sake."

"Now, the first two of those I could believe." I make a note to ask Zif about the location of the closest known Vapulan Tether. "Considering what a bastard I used to be, I have a hard time believing anyone would seek me out to _chat_."

"You were not, ah, entirely a bastard, Mannie." She smiles faintly at me. "Self-absorbed and power-hungry, obsessive about having everything done as you preferred, and ready to shred anyone who stood in your way, but that comes with being a Vapulan, so I didn't take it personally. Besides. You did me a kindness or two, and even if you did these things for the favors I'd owe you, I remember that you did them."

"I wanted competent subordinates. Not everyone works best when terrified or furious."

"So you had selfish motivations. You still kept me from being ripped apart by the others, or dissolving into a useless wreck." Aglaya spins a pen between her fingers. "I should have realized back then, that you would serve Lightning well. That is where you ended up, isn't it? I was more concerned with myself than casual observation."

"Aglaya, much as I love catching up on what a miserable bastard I used to be and reminiscing over painful memories, could you get to the point? I do have things to do. And I suspect you'd rather not wait until the Cherub and Malakite come looking for me."

Most demons would twitch to hear about that pair heading in their direction, but she only looks...sad. "Probably no one I know," she says, more to herself than to me. "You're quite right. I may stay in this area a while longer, to give the impression that I searched thoroughly, but I'd rather not run into them. Would you loan me a sheet of paper for a moment?"

I rip out a sheet from my notebook, and pass it over. She bends over the desk next to where I sit, and writes briskly. "I'm not surprised," she says, as she writes. "That you would end up redeeming. Always more interested in the science than the politics. He would appreciate that sort of thing. He always did." The paper she hands is me covered in names and addresses. "Here. I've been... I've been meaning to put this together for a while. Find a way to deliver it. You're here, you're not trying to kill me yet, I might as well seize the opportunity."

"What are these?" I think I recognize one or two of the names. Demons of Technology.

"Redemption candidates. In my estimation. Real name, Role name, current location." She smiles nervously, sunglasses not hiding much of her expression. "My judgment is not precise. I can't read people the way--I can't read people as well as some. But these are the ones who care more about their work than their position in the hierarchy, who don't go out of their way to be cruel. I've marked the ones who asked me about Heaven, though some of those might have been trying to determine my loyalty to turn me in for a reward, so it's not foolproof."

I fold the paper in half, and tuck it away inside of my jacket. "Why?"

"You don't trust me. I can't blame you. I wouldn't trust me." She folds her arms tightly. As if she's trying to hold herself together. "I think that everyone gets a choice. One chance to decide who they are. Every name I've given you belongs to someone who was made in Hell. It's only fair to give them a chance to choose differently."

"And what about you?"

"What about me?" She turns her back to me, staring at the door. "I had a choice, I made it. That's the end of the matter. I realize that as newly-redeemed you're all gung-ho to help everyone else make the same choice, but believe me, Mannie, I've thought about this."

"Including the part where the Game would skin you alive as a warm-up exercise to the real interrogation, if they found out about this."

"What, are you going to tell them?" She looks over her shoulder at me. "I didn't think so. All demons have their little secrets and betrayals. This will be mine. I'll fit in better with the rest of them now."

"But you used to--"

"I don't want to talk about it, Mannie." She takes a deep breath. "So. I've given you the list. You can do what you want with it. Even if you decide not to do anything with the names, that's a whole series of addresses for places that Vapula is working. I'm sure Lightning would be interested. Now I'm leaving, before your friends show up. Please remind them that if I end up back at my Heart, it's likely someone will be sent to investigate this potential Tether more thoroughly." She unlocks the back door. "Strangely enough, it was good to see you again. Try to avoid the Game. I'd hate to see you back in Hell."

I count to sixty, and then follow. She's gone, disappeared into the crowds building as people head out for dinner and entertainment. I could have geased her to tell no one she'd seen me, but she could always throw Essence into resisting the Geas, and then I'd be back to the problem of disturbance rattling at Kai's wild Tether. The reasons she gave for not mentioning my presence were good ones. Too well prepared to make me comfortable accepting them as truth. What I would give for a Seraph's resonance, or an Elohite's, to get a hint of how trustworthy someone might be. I can only discover what they need.

I would very much like to know what Aglaya needs. That she was careful to hide her eyes suggests deception, but she thought I hadn't any hooks left on her. She might have only been worried about my ability to track her down afterward.

Zif and Amets look up as I enter; both have acquired refills on their coffee while I was gone. "You were gone longer than I expected," Zif says. "Did something come up?"

"You could say that. I ran into an old coworker." I sit down, and shake my head at Zif's sudden tension. "You'd have known if I were in any danger. She may still tell the Game, but it's unlikely."

Amets sets aside his mug. "If you can tell me where she is--"

"You can run off and cause enough property damage to make disturbance, and likely lose a vessel. She's not helpless, and you're not in the Marches." I pull out the list, and hand it to Zif. "This is either immensely valuable or a set of traps. I couldn't say which, but a Seraph might have better luck."

Zif reads down the list. "You received this from the demon?"

"She claims they're redemption candidates. I would trust her about as far as I could throw her, but I don't know what sort of game she might be playing. One name and location, I could see a trap in that, but all of this?" I take Amets's coffee, as he's trying to peer over Zif's shoulder at the list, and I could use the caffeine kick. Too much sugar. So much for the "Malakim take it black and bitter" idea. "I couldn't say how she's changed since I last met her."

"What was this demon like when you knew her?" Zif asks, settling down with her PDA to make her own notes. "How long ago was that?"

"About two hundred years. She worked for me in Russia." I pass the coffee back when Amets glares at me. "A newly-Fallen Impudite, formerly of Lightning. Noticeably competent compared to the idiots I was working with at the time, despite not knowing enough about the project to do more than follow instructions. Uncomfortable around humans, though it seems she's gotten over that."

Zif looks up. "Fallen? From Lightning? Do you know what her name was, as a Mercurian?"

"She goes by Aglaya now. I don't know if that was her name before."

"I can't place it. I'll send a query." Zif taps the stylus of her PDA on the arm of the couch. "As if this weren't complicated enough already. It's been nearly an hour; we'll go examine this wild Tether, have it stabilized, and then reassess the situation."

"And by reassess the situation, you _do_ mean hunt down and destroy this demon, right?" Amets stands up, and frowns at the crumbs lingering on his pants. "We should move quickly. It might be running--"

"Relax, Virtue." I finish off his coffee; sugared caffeine is better than none. "I have enough hooks in her to follow her to the ends of the Earth. How many Forces do you have for this realm?"

"Two, but the two of you--"

"Will be looking for viable long-term solutions that further the cause of Heaven," Zif says. "We can discuss it in the car."

The three of us look something like a mortal family as we leave together, complete with the sullen teenage boy straggling behind us. His eyes narrow a few times as he glances about at people, but Amets has enough sense to leave any dishonorable humans alone.

As Zif starts the car, Amets leans over my shoulder. "What do you think about this demon, Gifter? An old friend of yours?"

I shrug. "She's a demon."

"That's not an answer."

"Yes, it is. I'm merely being succinct. She's a demon. I don't _like_ demons. They're untrustworthy and prone to casual cruelty. The stupid ones are unreliable, the smart ones have hidden agendas, and none of them fit human standards for psychological wellness. I'd prefer to avoid demons entirely, and I'd rather have someone else around if I'm forced to deal with them for long." I pick up the magazine from the floor of the car. "Besides. The next time I speak with Judgment, the Judges will be more suspicious of my motivations and desires because of this meeting."

"Why do you dislike Judgment?"

"I'm not fond of Judgment, but I don't dislike them. I do, however, dislike dealing with them when they become aggressive in their questioning. It reminds me of the Game."

The Malakite flops back in his seat. "Are we there yet?"

I look at Zif. "Is there any recorded study on the effects of child vessels on the traits exhibited by the celestials in them?"

"Actually, yes. The study group determined that immature traits displayed were not so negative or accompanied by long-term effects as to make such vessels more dangerous than any other cultural group with sets of pre-determined behavioral expectations."

"Ah. Well. That's reassuring."

We find Kai playing jump rope with two children on the sidewalk in front of the community center. "Sorry," she says, handing the rope back over to one girl. "I have to run. But if I see you again, I'll teach you the criss-cross pattern. It's not hard once you get it down."

"You'll bring your jump rope so that you can show us how to do it with two of them?" asks the younger of the two girls. The older girl smiles hopefully at Amets, though the Malakite either hasn't noticed or is choosing to ignore her.

"Definitely."

The older of the children sidles up to Amets. She's wearing clothing Andrealphus would approve of, despite her age. "Are you moving in here?"

"Only visiting," Amets says, taking a half step away from her. "I won't be here long."

"Oh, the accent is so cute! Are you from England?"

"I used to live there." The Malakite's posture has edged into discomfort. "I...really ought to be going."

"Yes, you ought, young man," says Zif, putting a hand on his shoulder. "We have an appointment to keep." She steers him away, following Kai's lead.

The girl frowns. "She's awfully bossy."

"He's too old for you anyway," I say, and don't let my Cherub get out of sight.


	9. In Which We Are All Diplomatic

Zif steps carefully into the center of the machine, and nods. "Lightning. That's settled."

"And what other Domains does it travel to?" Amets asks, following in right behind her. There's enough room for the both of them, though it would be tight to add anyone else.

I have no desire to tromp on the baby Tether. "Why'd she track you down?" I ask Mannie, my arm wrapped into his. Knowing there are demons around makes me want to hold onto him, keep him safe. Not that being near me is the safest place, but I like knowing where he is.

"She wasn't looking for me. It was only a chance meeting. It was this Tether she was trying to find." He's letting himself be held, even though it means following me in one of my pacing rounds. Very considerate of him. "Or so she says. But it seems unlikely they'd know both about the Tether and about me coming here."

"Don't think you could be tracked?"

"Possibly. I still have one hook in me, though the Boss said there weren't any more than that. I tried to stay out of favor-trading. Too complicated and prone to inconvenience. But if I were being tracked... I don't think they'd send a single Impudite."

So long as he's close, I don't have to worry. I lead us around one of Al's piles of equipment, while Zif and Amets wait for the Tether to tell them what other Domains it travels through. "Maybe not, but the Game's all twisty. Hard to say what they would do."

He looks amused. "And you say that I worry too much. Zif would know if anything were about to happen to me, Kai." The way he talks about Zif, it reminds me a little of how I talk about my Boss, and I like hearing that in his voice. He ought to have a thousand and one friends, people he can count on to help him when I'm not around. Which is more often than not, and even if I know all the reasons why he ought to stay in Heaven and I ought to stay on Earth, that doesn't mean I entirely like the situation. "You can concentrate on staying out of, ah, major trouble. I don't think you could stay out of trouble entirely."

"I'm supposed to run into trouble. It's in my job description. My Boss didn't give me the ability to kill demons with an egg timer so that I could sit around waiting for other people to solve problems. For certain values of problems, anyway; I'm pretty sure the deadly egg timer thing wouldn't help with the problems you get assigned."

"You'd be surprised."

I finally let him go; he's more than happy to listen to me and walk along, but I can see the way he's been watching Al's machine. "I'm going to give Al a bit of moral support. You can poke at that thing now. I mean, not literally poking, I told him no one would touch anything."

"You don't have to go, Kai."

"Hey, I know how you get about new gadgetry." And there's an anxious pair of red eyes that's been appearing in one of the doorways from time to time that I'd rather get hustled away before any of the others notice. It's very well for them to say we can deal with the sorcery issue later, but I'm not counting on that sort of calm, collected response if an ethereal waltzes into the room. Not that a dog could waltz very well; the whole "two left feet" thing becomes literal, and I don't think Sirius's vessel is designed to stand on hind legs for long.

The ethereal hound waits for me a few feet down the hall, and we walk together to the second floor where Al's made his bed. "So when you said you'd stay out of sight," I say, as we move further away, "what you meant was that you wouldn't walk directly into the room and greet people."

"Al asked me to make sure no one was messing with his machine," Sirius says, and pads up the stairs. "I did try to stay out of the doorway when anyone was looking. Your friends don't seem to get along well. Or is it only the boy who doesn't like them? I gather they work for different masters."

"That's as good a summary as any." Al's door is closed. I rap out the opening bars of Hotel California. "I try to stay out of politics. Can't see how they do anything but muddle matters and distract people who ought to be paying attention elsewhere."

There's no answer at the door, so I rap out another few bars. "Al? It's Kai. And Sirius. Mind if we come in?"

"Whatever."

Close enough to an invitation.

Al's hunched over some contraption inside, cross-legged on the pile of old mattresses he uses for a bed. He doesn't look up as we enter. Sirius leaps onto the bed and settles down beside him, resting his head on the kid's knee. "They aren't touching anything," Sirius said. "I watched to make sure."

I close the door behind me. Polly's hiding in the shadow of its opening, and retreats to a different shadow beneath a chair once that one disappears. The light in here is brighter than downstairs, product of a salvaged lamp. "What are you working on?"

"A piece." Al clips off a fragment of wire. "It'll slot in once I'm finished. Goes next to those big gears. I had to make those myself, you know. Sheet metal and a lot of work."

"People seem impressed." Mannie's eyes lit up the way they do when he's presented with free rein to rewire something for higher power efficiency, and even Zif smiled.

"Yeah. People." He clips off a long stretch of wire from a spool, and begins twisting it around a piece. "I never asked for anyone to show up here. I was doing fine on my own."

"I'm sorry to drag a lot of people into your space, Al. If I could have avoided it, I would have. But it's kinda necessary." I don't like this room much, too small to move in easily. But if it makes him comfortable I can sit in the chair and let him feel like he's in control of the space.

"Why?" He gives me a quick look without raising his head. "Why not just leave me be, or help me out yourself?"

"Because if something isn't done about that place I mentioned, you might have ended up with a gateway to places you don't want to meet people from." Sirius manages to look offended at that.

"And what if I just quit? Left my work and skipped town?" There's a challenge in his voice, like he wants me to ask him to stay.

"I don't know. Maybe the potential would fall apart. Maybe you'd end up with a gateway to Hell anyway." His head jerks up at that. "And maybe you wouldn't get very far. You're a sorcerer, Al, and that makes a lot of people unhappy."

"Never did anything to them. Whoever they are."

"That's not going to stop them." I pull Polly out from under the chair, scratch her between shadowy feathers. It reminds me of giving a Malakite a back rub. "Messing with that kind of power makes you a target, and it gives you the potential to do a lot of damage. Some people would rather get rid of the possibility than wait around to find out if you would."

"That's why you don't want me calling up spirits."

"Yeah. Enough attention on you already."

"Says the woman who's brought a bunch of her friends into my perfectly safe abandoned building to nose around at my project." He switches to another tool. "So say a gateway to, um, Hell opened. You're a demon hunter, right? Why can't you take care of that?"

"Do I look like the Archangel Michael to you?" Though, come to think of it, there's no reason why Michael couldn't wear a vessel like this. I don't think it's really his style, though. Nothing martial about it. On the other hand, I'm told he knows how to do subtlety, even if his Servitors don't always show it. "One demon, sure, if they're not much more powerful than I am. Two, if I'm careful and lucky. All of the Horde? Not so much. I'd be in Trauma in a heartbeat."

"Smashed to a pulp?" He has all the gory curiosity I should expect from a boy his age. And doesn't know what Trauma is, conveniently for me. Got to remember that I'm still keeping up a vague sort of cover with him, though I'll want to get that out of the way soon.

"Fine red mist." That's the phrase Jack uses when discussing the results of an extremely one-sided confrontation. "You can see why I'd want to avoid that. And demons aren't really the negotiating type unless they have to be. Trust me, you do not want to run into them."

"Even I know that much." Al sets his chunk of machinery aside. "My mother told me--well, I don't know how much of it was accurate, but a lot about demons. How you don't want to try to call them up, not if you want to do anything but what they're going to decide on. Don't have to worry about that. I'm not going to be stupid."

"Good. Because, I mean, if you start acting stupid, that's going to leave Sirius here as the voice of reason, and I don't think he wants that job."

Sirius opens his eyes from his comfortable doze. "Most certainly not."

"See?"

"What, you're not the voice of reason?" Al's smiling now, as I'd hoped. Coaxing a teenager out of a sulk is a more delicate task than calming a distraught child, but nearly as rewarding. "Here I was thinking you had all the answers."

"All the answers? Not even close to it. I do, however, have the phone numbers for people who have certain subsets of the answers, which comes in handy."

"I'll bet." Al pats Sirius, setting the ethereal's tail thumping. "What's going to happen once they...do whatever it is that they're doing, Kai? Are they going to disappear again, or am I stuck with them?"

"If things go well, you're going to be stuck with someone, yes. I don't know how many or who. Depends on what people higher up the command chain than I am decide on."

"And where are you in the command chain?"

Nine Forces, a Boss who calls every few decades, and doing temp work for another Archangel? "Pretty much at the bottom, as field ops go."

"Oh. So you're the type who goes out and does the work, while other people make the decisions."

"Everyone does the work, Al. It's just that people are better suited to different places. You wouldn't want to send Mannie off to fight demons, at least not in the one-on-one sense, and you wouldn't want to set me to working out how to escape a fiendish death trap." I grin at him. "Now, _constructing_ a death trap, that I might be able to do. Given enough time, tools, and whipped cream."

"What do you do with whipped cream in a death trap?"

"That's the clever bit; it doesn't do anything. But just watch people get distracted trying to figure out why there's so much there!"

"You're weird, Kai." He stands up, runs his hand through his hair in a gesture that avoids the horns through long practice. "I'm going to have to meet people eventually, if they're all moving in here. Right?"

"Not necessarily these, but someone."

"So. Um. How long can I wait?"

"A while. Depends on how much time you want to spend on your machine, seeing how that's where people are going to be wandering." I stand up, and offer him a hand. "You could come downstairs now, if you wanted. No one down there who's going to freak. Mannie and Zif would love to hear about what you have planned next, and Amets said he'd appreciate it if you could tell him about the dreams you used to have."

A moment stretching out like a rubber band. "Maybe later," Al says, and time snaps back into sync. He turns back to the piece he was working on. "I'd like to finish this first, and you have that stuff to arrange that doesn't involve me."

"You're sure?"

"Yeah." He doesn't look up from his work, though from what I can see I think he's just fiddling with parts he already finished.

"Call me if you need anything." I close the door behind me because that's how he wants it, and head back downstairs.


	10. Intermission: The Halls of Creation. November, 1956.

The reliever paced a steady path around the silent Ofanite, hands clasped behind his back. He hadn't been there faithfully or regularly, but when he remembered, he tried to visit. Three days was a long time to wait for anything. According to the Archangel he longed to emulate, three days was the absolute limit for staying anywhere at all, and the reliever didn't want to think about what it would mean if this took longer.

But then there was spinning, and a marvelous hum that spun up into inaudible ranges, and his friend was back, just like he remembered it. "Kai! I was worried."

The Ofanite flickered, and spun around him. "Silly reliever. Why worry?"

"Because you were in Trauma, that's why!" Jack put his hands to his sides in tiny fists. "You could've been stuck. What if you ended up stuck up here while I got down to Earth for the first time? Then I couldn't come see you like I planned."

"I'm unstuck now, so you can stop worrying," said the Ofanite, flames warm around the reliever. "So you're really heading down? Figured out how you want to fledge?"

"Yeah. I'm going to be Mercurian." The two of them leapt out the window together, the reliever darting back and forth inside the Ofanite's ring as they went. "It was either that or Malakite, and I'm not sure I'm up to those oaths. It ends up being so serious. I want to have fun."

"And who are you going to ask for a vessel, anyway?" Kai slowed to let the reliever keep up with it. "Last I was here, you still hadn't made up your mind."

"Janus. That's who I'm going to ask."

"Not Eli?" Jack could detect a note of disappointment, there. He was neither fledging Ofanite nor following Kai's Superior, and he had promised long ago to follow Kai's example on all counts. Kai wouldn't hold enthusiastic reliever-promises against him, but to see him discard both must smart.

"No, not Eli. It's..." Jack settled down to cling to Kai's ring, letting it spin beneath him. "You know, he's been putting a lot of his Servitors into the service of other Archangels."

"Maybe they'll do better there. Not everyone chooses the right person to serve. It can be hard to tell who you'll do best with." The Ofanite spun around ornate carved pillars, whirling Jack in a circle. "What does that have to do with anything?"

"I don't know. Maybe nothing. I asked, and people said it was nothing, it's not like he's moving everyone to other people. But Ray is working for Dreams now, and when Ipsy went to talk to him before fledging, she came back saying she'd changed her mind and signed up with Novalis instead. I wonder, is all."

The Ofanite settled to the ground, winding slowly around the pillar. "Jack, my Boss is the Archangel of Creation. He's been around since _forever_. If he's doing some reorganization, he must have a reason."

"I guess." Jack slid off, and poked at the soft grass with one foot. "I like the Wind. You know that, I spent as much time running around with them as I did in the Halls of Creation, and I've been spending more time with them since you went downstairs."

"If that's where you think you're best-suited, I'm not going to argue, Jack."

The reliever sighed. "You're disappointed."

Kai was silent for a moment. "Maybe a little bit. I shouldn't be. If that's where you fit, that's where you should go. It would be wrong to try to convince you otherwise."

Jack wrapped his arms around the Ofanite's ring, flames tickling his cheek. "It'll be great. I'll be traveling everywhere once I prove myself enough that Janus lets me down to Earth, so I can come visit you all the time, so long as I don't end up on another continent. And if I do end up on another continent, I'll get a boat or a plane or something and come see you _anyway_."

The Ofanite laughed. "I look forward to seeing you, however you show up. Now I need to spin; gotta go explain to the Boss how I lost my vessel, and ask for another one. I hope he's not annoyed. This is going to be my third vessel, and it's not like he has a million lying around. Unless he does. I mean, he could, if he wanted to. Creation, and all that."

"How did you lose it, anyway? Fighting demons?" Jack made a few enthusiastic swings of his own. "The Windies are teaching me how to fight stuff. They say it'll be even easier once I fledge, because I'll be tall enough for them to show me the moves properly."

"Fighting demons, yeah."

"Did you win? Did you get them?"

"Well, I got one of them. Not so much the other one. Thus, no more vessel." The Ofanite pulled itself free of the pillar. "Good luck with the fledging!"

Jack waved goodbye, and then returned to the Groves, taking a paintbrush from the Halls of Creation with him as he went. No one would have minded if he'd asked to borrow it, but it was the principle of the thing.


	11. Intermission. Tartarus. 1917.

The meeting had been postponed until after Hari recovered from Trauma. Mannie had been unable to decide if he would prefer that the meeting never happen or be gotten over with as soon as possible. His opinion leaned enough towards the former that even through the numbness he could feel a vague sense of disappointment when he was called in.

The two of them stood next to each other and waited. Hari fidgeted occasionally with one of the rings embedded in his arms. Mannie kept his hands clasped behind his back, staring at the floor, and didn't bother to wonder what had gone wrong. He had itemized each mistake, compiled a mental list of all the procedures to institute the next time to avoid similar mistakes. It was a way to avoid noticing the jagged edges he could feel with every step, where pieces of his soul had been ripped away.

Though the demon's footsteps were soft, neither of them failed to notice their master when he entered the room.

"I'm disappointed in you, boys." Vapula's voice was kind, the gentle reproof of a father who has caught his sons misbehaving. "I had such high hopes for each of you, but this latest incident... I would be pressed to call it a success. Even a qualified success. Do you have anything to say in your defense?"

Mannie considered attempting to cast the blame on Hari, but he was too complicit in the failure to hang his future on that gambit. He shook his head. Beside him, heard the Habbalite start to speak, and then follow his lead. Neither of them so blameless in the matter, or equipped with a sufficient cover story, to consider blame-throwing worth the risk. Best to accept responsibility now that it was staring them in the face.

"Such high hopes," said the Demon Prince of Technology, though neither of them would dare call him a demon to his face, or in the presence of anyone who might report this slur. "But God's work is difficult, and not all are strong enough to do his will." He smiled down on them. "Nonetheless, both of you have proven yourself in the past, and I see fit to give you another chance."

Distant elation, inside the comfortable blank fog Mannie wore around his mind, and it was too early, too early to be pleased in any way. His master could find many uses for a demon who'd failed him, most of them unpleasant for the Servitor, and a fair number deadly.

"But I would have you remember this incident," said the Prince, as if either of them could forget. Mannie could almost wish the Forces he'd lost had carried the memory away, to leave him unaware of how terribly, horribly he'd failed. "Hari, you are no longer an Inspector. Maharang, you are no longer an Inspector. Hari, you are no longer a Knight of Combustion. Maharang, you are no longer a Knight of Combustion."

After losing so much so quickly, this further loss...hurt not at all. It was only a formality, making official what he'd known would be coming. Hari shuddered beside him, stilled. So the Habbalite was taking this with less equanimity; he could use that, somehow, if only he could collect his tattered self back into someone who could plan again.

"Now," said Vapula, patting each of them on the shoulder, "let's look at this as a learning experience. I expect both of you will do far better now that you know what sort of mistakes to avoid. I'm sending you to one of my Tethers to work off that dissonance you've acquired, and when you're finished, I'll expect you to present the Seneschal with complete reports on every error you made to cause this incident, and how you plan to avoid them in the future." He frowned slightly, and both of them trembled. "You might also wish to present the Seneschal with a report on how she can improve the defenses of her Tether. Her predecessor was negligent in this area." The frown turned into a gentle smile again. "Try to work together, boys."

They were left to contemplate how one might present a report criticizing the Tether's security arrangements in such a way as to both impress Vapula with their insight and not unduly offend a Seneschal now higher-ranking than either of them.

"This is your fault," Hari said, as they left the room. "If you'd taken the obvious signs of disorder more seriously--"

"If you'd spent more time arranging the security of our facilities, and less time taking credit for the work of others, the revolution wouldn't have mattered." They turned to glare at each other in the same moment. "Not to mention your pet projects--"

"My security was _flawless_. The only error was in your assessment of the situation." Hari drew a thin red scratch along his own arm. "I should never have listened to you."

"And I should have known better than to trust your security arrangements. At least that error I know how to correct." Mannie gave the little Djinn scampering towards them an icy glare. "That took you long enough."

"Had to track everyone down," said the Djinn, not particularly apologetic. News of promotions and demotions spread quickly, and while either of them could have ripped it apart, the little demon knew it wasn't impudent enough to be worth their time. It held out the sheet of paper in one taloned paw. "All listed. More or less." It scampered away once Mannie had snatched up the paper.

He read down the list, and was not petty enough to hide it from Hari's view. Nearly three quarters of the demons in Trauma or only recently come out of it, all but one Hellsworn listed as dead or presumed dead. Most of those who had escaped vessel-death were Impudites, carrying enough Essence to return to their Hearts once the full scale of the disaster had become apparent. Mannie was surprised to see the Impudite he'd geased into passing over her Essence had kept her vessel; he'd expected to see her on the list of those in Trauma.

A handful had fled back to Tartarus through Heart or Tether, bleeding or a few Forces shorter, but still alive. None of those demons would appreciate how much damage they'd been spared when the attack concentrated on the two in charge of the lab. Mannie scratched out a note about certain names on the back of the paper, to see what favors he could pull from them in exchange for not describing their abandonment of duties in the face of danger.

"Three presumed dead? What, did no one check their Hearts? Presumed dead indeed." Hari pulled the paper away from the Lilim. "You'd think even a pathetic little demon like that would be able to go see if there are shards."

"There's dead, and then there's going Renegade," Mannie said. He made no move to take the paper back; the act of writing cemented memory enough, rendering the notes secondary. A touch on the hooks he'd collected told him that one of those presumed dead was indeed reduced to component Forces, a second still alive. Now there was a potential sacrifice to throw to the Game, should they come sniffing around looking for some traitor to fill a quota. The third name he had no hooks on, and only a vague recollection of its vessel's appearance. More likely dead than not.

"I suppose there are a few Servitors of Technology stupid enough to try that," Hari said. He paused in the doorway, looking out over a stretch of junkyard where remains of failed experiments lay in mixed heaps. On the far side of the yard, an archway threw out wild sparks, and occasionally ran a blue line of electricity from top to bottom of the arch. "If you do anything like that again, Mannie, I will kill you."

"Spare me your posturing. You should be spending your energy being grateful to not have lost more."

"Two Distinctions," said the Habbalite, pulling the Lilim up to face him by the lapels of his coat. In celestial form, Hari was shorter, but this was no comfort compared to the fury behind those eyes. "Two. Distinctions. The only reason I am not ripping your intestines out and _strangling_ you with them is because we were told to cooperate. Do you have any idea how long it took me to get those?"

"Precisely as long as it took me." Mannie pried Hari's fingers off his coat, one by one. "Did you lose so many Forces as to forget that I was there beside you for each? I believe the major difference being that I _worked_ for mine, while you spent a great deal of effort finding others whose credit you could steal." He offered a calculated smile as the Habbalite's eyes narrowed. "If you want try something, I'll give you fair warning that you'll owe me for it." They had an agreement, and...the agreement still held. Apparently.

"Bastard." The accusation was so weary as to be mild. They knew each other too well to get through those known defenses. The arguments had become more habit and stress relief than serious attempts to wound.

"You'd have to ask Mother on that count." Mannie stepped up to the Tether's archway, stifled the queasy feeling its inefficient design was giving him. Now that the meeting was over, all his cultivated numbness was wearing off, leaving him nearly as terrified as he ought to be. "Let me brighten your day. If you want to pursue that Word? You can have it. I'm not interested."

Hari stopped short, caught in the motion of pushing ahead to storm through the archway. "You expect me to believe that."

"Believe whatever you want. I'm tired of the competition. There's a _reason_ the Word of Electricity has become available three times in the last twenty years, Hari."

"They were weak." The Habbalite's lip, pierced through half a dozen times, curled in contempt. "I should have expected that you would be too."

Mannie shrugged. "Call it what you like, but I have better uses for my time than to paint a target on my back. You still want to be the Demon of Electricity? Go ahead. I'm not trying for it anymore."

"I'm not so easily fooled as that," Hari snapped, and walked through the archway.

The Lilim pulled out a notebook, and scribbled out a plan of action. Let someone else call down the wrath of the Host; he had other projects to attend to. It was time to reassess his risk to gain ratios, and adjust away from risk. No Distinction was worth that attention.


	12. In Which Presents Come With Strings

Zif shows me the data she's collected. "If the pattern continues, five more minutes. Your opinion?"

I'd be more comfortable doing the calculations on paper, but I admit her PDA can run the numbers faster. "It seems plausible. I'm afraid Tethers were never my area of study. Or even a secondary specialization. Amets, do you consider this acceptable?"

The Malakite has pulled a chair into the room, and shrugs from where he's sitting. "You know full well that my preference would be to Sing it stable the moment it locks onto Dreams, and call my Lady here to bless the place. But if I must compromise, yes, this is acceptable." He stands up, and stretches, absurdly poised in his scuffed jeans and T-shirt advertising some musical group. "If you will notify me at the appropriate moment, I will perform the Song as best I can, though I warn the use of Essence may disturb this place if I fail.."

Kai lopes back in from wherever she went, half a frown on her face. "How's it going?" she asks me, and it sounds more a matter of polite conversation than curiosity. I hadn't expected to find myself worrying over her for reasons other than corporeal safety. I don't like to see her this subdued.

"Amets is about to stabilize the Tether, when it's locked between both Lightning and Dreams. And then, we call for our Superiors, and see who shows up first." Because I think she could use the reassurance, I add, "You've been doing well. It only touched infernal once while we were observing it, and briefly."

She paces around me, my own distressed satellite. "Good to hear. When you have the time, I'd like to ask you about--"

"Now," says Zif, looking up from her watch, and Amets begins the Song.

I haven't heard this one. The Symphony swirls around me, chimes in with harmonious chords to play along as Amets sings. The Tether spreads around me, the edges of the locus washing over me as it stretches to fill--this room? This building? I can't tell how far the Tether grows as it stabilizes, nor do I know if this is a typical reaction to the Song. I can taste the nature of it, inspiration and hope, lightning and dreams.

Zif allows herself a faint smile, the same one Jean uses on rare occasions. "He's found the upper locus." Amets looks unperturbed, and continues the Song.

Two quick bursts of disturbance, one after another, and my Boss stands beside Zif, just past the outer edge of the machinery. He looks the same as when I last saw him, a man with graying hair, carrying a briefcase. Stepping in from the doorway comes a woman in a long grey dress, her eyes an astonishing green. Blandine, by the way she looks to Amets, and then, with a frown, at Jean.

I cannot be comfortable in the presence of two Archangels. That one is Jean helps immensely, and so I am composed, but...not comfortable, no.

Zif bows her head; there's no sense in wasting more time than that on formalities. He appreciates efficiency. "It rests in both Domains."

"So we see." The voice of the Archangel of Dreams is as beautiful as all the lullabies I've never heard, enough to make Mozart weep. "This place is the dream of one person," she says, facing Jean. Hostility to her words, and even that is beautiful.

"Inspiration," says my Boss. "It rests in a strategic location." There's nothing but neutral, logical truth in what he says. 

"You would take a dream and make a staging-ground out of it."

"As the interests of Heaven require, yes." Jean tilts his head slightly. "I suggest a compromise. The opportunity presents itself to attempt a forked Tether, allowing both of us the use."

"How very...Marc of you."

"As it may be."

The Archangel of Dreams hesitates only for a moment. "Better than that it be lost to the whir of empty machinery," she says.

There's a moment of silence, aside from Amets's Song, as the two Archangels perform whatever needs to be done in Heaven to place the Tether. Then Blandine turns, and touches her Malakite on the shoulder. "Remain here until I send word," she says. "You will guard this Tether until a Seneschal has been appointed, and take this gift that you may guard it well." Amets lifts his head from a bow, and begins considering the room. Blandine moves elsewhere; I haven't the eyes for her when there's another to hold my attention.

"You did well to call me here," says Jean to Zif, and touches her on the shoulder. "And again to prepare a suitable compromise. As I had been planning for some time now, I make you Vassal of Lightning. Remain here with your attuned until appropriate defenses have been installed."

When he turns to me, he seems to tower a hundred meters over me, no matter that my vessel is a few centimeters taller than his. "Emmanuel," he says, "you have shown your skill and dedication, and brought me another resource in our War. I grant you my Generator attunement. Remain here with Zif and secure this area against any attacks."

"Thank you." Ever inadequate to the debt. I have nothing more to give than myself to the one who tore me out of what I once was and set me here.

The Archangel of Lightning, savior of foolish Lilim who once dared to oppose him, turns away from me, and looks to Kai. "Eli set you to guard this place?"

"Yes," says Kai, shifting back and forth from one foot to another, though she's chosen to stand mostly still with this presence turned upon her. "Told me to watch out for it until it could be stabilized."

"Though it wasn't one of his."

Kai nods. "He said so at the beginning. That it wouldn't be his. That's why I called Mannie in, so I could get some help having it pointed at the right place."

"Interesting," says Jean. He puts out one hand, palm up. "You might join the service of Lightning if you wished to do so. Until Eli returns to ask for you back."

"Thank you," says Kai, and she sounds very...small. Like a reliever told it can't help with anything. "But I need to follow him. Until he tells me otherwise."

"As you'd like. The offer will remain. In the meantime, a small payment for your work." Then he's gone again, and Blandine has disappeared while I wasn't looking in her direction.

"I need to assess the area for defensibility," says Amets. He looks inordinately pleased with himself, arms folded across his chest. "If I must continue working with Lightning, at least you two will contribute appropriate security systems, won't you?"

"To be sure," says Zif, who appears neither smug nor awed, only as she always is. She pulls out her phone. "To begin with, we ought to buy this property, to avoid any legal problems. There's still a possibility that Vapulans are aware of the location."

"To begin with," says Kai, "everyone can move out of the room so that Al can get back in here and get back to work." She puts up a hand at Amets's expression. "Yeah, you want to play with the brand new Tether, understood, you can go play with the outside defenses. We have two doors on ground level, one on the roof, and another in the basement, there are windows all over the place, and who knows what other places for people to get in. Go poke at those for a while. You want this Tether to grow, that means letting Al get back to work, and he's not going to do that with a bunch of people he doesn't know crowding his project." She shoos both Zif and Amets out of the room, the Cherub leaving with more grace than the Malakite.

And then turns to me, grinning. "Congratulations. Knew you could do it."

"With your help." I catch her in a hug when she paces by me. "Stop orbiting for a moment, will you?"

"That's no moon, that's a battle station!" She holds on tightly. "Figures that Sparkies would get all the tractor beams."

"Are you going to stay here for a while? All I heard of your assignment was that you were to keep the Tether ready until it could be stabilized."

"Of course I'm staying here. You're here, aren't you? Like I'd miss the chance to see you corporeal-side. I mean, until the Boss gives me another job."

"Any idea what your next project might be?"

"Projects. How very Sparky." She spins free, but consents to pace around me instead of further away. "You do fit there, heart and soul. I'm glad. It's the most wonderful thing in the world, to have a Boss who understands where you're coming from. And I have to say, you being able to toss lightning bolts around at people seems right up your alley, if maybe a little bit Emperor in _Return of the Jedi_."

"And what did you get, Kai?" It might be rude to ask, but she'd never hold it against me, and the curiosity builds.

"It's cool. But I'll show you later, outside." I don't know the names for any of the moves she makes, but she's dancing, and that reassures me.

"A pity Blandine wasn't as grateful for your help."

She stops, and taps me on the nose. "Don't be snide. Just because she doesn't get along with your Boss doesn't mean she has anything against mine. I wasn't doing this for what I could get out of it. Besides," Kai adds, sweeping across the room in a series of leaps I couldn't possibly duplicate, "she did say something to me."

"And did she say?"

Kai's back beside me, and smiles. "It's private. But it gave me hope, and that's what she does. Now go help them design a burglar alarm or something, Al's getting twitchy upstairs and he deserves a chance to work on the Tether he made, right?"

"Right," I say, and allow myself to be pushed outside the room.

I find Zif examining the door on the north side of the building. "All the way to here," she says, as I approach. "The locus extends to the limits of the building. I hadn't expected it to go so far, not when it began as a space inside the machine. A strange Tether, though all Tethers are strange in their own ways. We'll discover more about the quirks of this one as we study it."

"Did you discover who holds the deed to the land?"

"Not yet. I have a Soldier investigating." Zif runs one finger along the hinges of the door. "Solid construction, but the entire building will need renovation. We'll add a suitable function to justify the comings and goings of people. Some sort of independent research facility, perhaps, though Dreams will argue against that. It will depend on how the area is zoned."

"A science museum? Inspiration, science, and no doubt some children will form great dreams about what they can do."

Zif looks up at me. "More likely to please Dreams than some ideas. It would require a significant investment of financial resources, and screened personnel, but the potential to increase the Tether's power may be worth that investment. We'll have to evaluate the tactical disadvantages of having so much public travel." She adopts a less analytical tone. "And I imagine Kai would be pleased to hear of such plans."

"There, ah, is that too." I make a helpless gesture. "I'm not entirely objective, sometimes."

"You're not an Elohite, Mannie. You're not expected to be."

"But I let it affect my decisions. I choose my actions differently because I'd like to please him, or see him again." I frown. "And I have trouble with my pronouns around him--her, but that's neither here nor there."

Zif allows herself to look amused, likely because it does make me feel better. "Much of friendship consists of choosing one's actions differently to please people other than oneself. Unless it leads you into conflict with your duties, there's no need to be concerned over it. As for the pronouns... A not uncommon affliction for those who have spent large portions of their lives on the corporeal plane."

I remain not entirely convinced, and Zif can see that. 

"Mannie," she says, "all angels who walk on Earth need ties to Heaven. The Word they serve is the best place to start, but we hold to many things. Those who fledged from relievers remember the places they played when young, those made whole remember first opening their eyes to see the beauty of their Archangel's Word. We have familiar places, friends, all those memories to bind us to our place of birth." She tucks her PDA away into the pocket of her jacket. "Those who were made in Hell cannot draw on such memories as these, so they form other bonds, new memories and friendships. It is entirely acceptable for you to cling to this sort of relationship."

"And what if it does come into conflict with what I ought to be doing?"

"Then I trust you will be intelligent enough to assess the situation, and choose a course of action that will provide the best results." Her lips thin slightly. "Do you think it coincidence, Mannie, that the Boss would ask Kai to work for him? There are uses in Lightning for any dedicated servant of Heaven, no matter how little research might suit one, but she isn't the sort that would typically be courted."

I wrap my mind around several concepts presented to me. It doesn't take long. "He is such an Elohite."

"Naturally."

"I'd be happier if Kai were working for Lightning myself, but...it doesn't seem likely, does it?"

"Perhaps. Perhaps not. Jean has enough experience to know when subtlety is required." She raises one eyebrow. "I seem to recall that you seduced your Ofanite with a shiny sports car and a promise to look for his Archangel."

"Ah. Well. Yes." I put my hands in my pocket. "I'll go help Amets check for weak points in the building."

"A good idea." She goes back to examining the door. "I think we ought to call Nosha down to take a look. It has more experience with Tethers than any of us."

"I didn't realize it studied that."

"Not so much studied, but it was a Seneschal,. The experience may be valuable. While I have spent time working in a Tether, little compares to that sort of direct personal connection."

"I hadn't realized Nosha had once been attuned to a Tether of Knowledge."

"Not Knowledge. Death."

"...ah." And I can't blame the Elohite for not mentioning that when it told me of its own Fall and redemption.

The information lingers, as I walk up to the sixth floor, staircase after staircase. All the usual thoughts running through the back of my mind, about rewiring the lighting, returning the elevator to working condition, security systems I've made or dismantled or circumvented. In the forefront, realizing that I shouldn't be so...surprised. Not all demons who turn to Heaven are weak or low-ranking, and not all of them are so desperate as I was. I can conceive of few situations that would send a Seneschal into such terror as to run back to Heaven and leave its Tether behind. This raises the significant possibility that Nosha simply...chose. To come back to the place it had abandoned. I can't claim such purity of purpose in my decision.

Amets stalks about the rooftop in the gray pre-dawn light, pausing at the northern and western walls to examine the streets on either side. "The tactical situation is far from ideal," he says, "especially in this part of the city. If we tried to investigate all suspicious-looking passersby, we'd never reach an end. So we'll have to concentrate on securing the building itself. I expect full support on the hardware side of this process from you Sparkies; you have all those zap-bang little toys for a reason."

"Zif is checking the downstairs exits," I say. What a dry, desolate place it is up here, somehow more abandoned than the dusty floors below. It must be the dead gardens and unwatered pots of plants that make the roof seem so bleak. "I have a few ideas for stop-gap security measures we can install today."

"Good." The Malakite folds his arms, glares up at me. "So now that the Tether is tamed, would you tell me where your little demon friend has gone wandering?"

I find one of my hooks on the Impudite, and drop two Essence into the Song to track her down on the other end. "Not on the corporeal plane. Unless you were in the mood to go jaunting into Hell, this wouldn't be the best time to chase her."

"Damn." He looks far more a teenage boy than an experienced Malakite when he sulks. "I was hoping to take care of that problem."

"She has more corporeal Forces than you do, and a weapon that renders such concerns irrelevant. Maybe you should stick to security arrangements."

"My Lady granted me another corporeal Force so that I could better defend this place," Amets objects, but he doesn't choose to press the matter. Even with a spare vessel handy for jumping back into the fight, he's unlikely to win much favor from his Superior by getting his head shot off looking for a demon who hasn't approached this place. "In any case, I don't suppose you could... I don't know. Check on the hooks you have regularly, to see if anyone you knew is approaching the area."

I take a slow breath. "Amets, how many hooks do you think I _have_?"

"You could limit the checking to demons of Technology and Nightmares."

"And I repeat my question."

"I don't know," he says, hands on his hips. "I'm not a Lilim. You can't have that many."

"I have been collecting favors since I was first made. I've endeavored not to use them unless absolutely necessary. More than a hundred demons, Amets. Twice as many hooks total, and most of those are on demons of Technology. I could spend every note of Essence I had on the Song for a month and be able to tell you that most of them are in Hell, or halfway around the world. It's not a Cherub's attunement; it's only hooks and a Song."

"I suppose that's less useful."

"Without a name, yes." I snap a dry twig off the dead tree sitting in a pot, rub off the bark until I'm left with a pale brown stick. "But when I know who I want to find, it becomes convenient."

"People who owe you."

"Yes." I break the stick into smaller pieces. "Most of the people who I owe aren't in any position to call in favors."

"Why not?"

"Dead, mostly. One way or another." I can remember a dozen different methods I used to clear debts, though I usually didn't kill anyone myself. That was work for underlings, or arranging "accidents." Technology work was always full of accidents. I've killed few people personally, fewer if one removes vessel death from the count. But with all the work for Hell, those projects with vast scope... How many deaths have I been responsible for? I can't even remember. "It makes restitution complex."

"I can imagine." The way he frowns at me for a moment says he is imagining, though what he comes up with cannot possibly match the truth. "If we keep you supplied with pictures of those people who we're suspicious of, will that help any?"

"If I recognize a vessel and have a hook, I can find out if they're nearby."

"That's some help." The Malakite allows himself to relax for a moment as dawn finally breaks out of the grey light, a new taste of Essence for a new day. "I realize Zif is the one with the Distinction, but I'd appreciate it if you would keep me updated on the security changes you implement. I'd like to have a useful report to give to my Lady when she sends an angel down to be a Seneschal."

"Certainly." Cooperation is a marvelous strategy, when one isn't concerned that the other party is waiting for the first opportunity to engage in betrayal.

I move downstairs more slowly, checking the windows and what remains of the lighting for future consideration. Kai can stop by hardware stores and get me enough parts to cobble together a temporary system with key pieces sent down from the Halls of Progress, and then we can start the work on proper security. No doubt the Seneschal--Seneschals--will have plans and expectations of their own, once they're attuned.

On the stairs between the second and first floors, I find myself staring down at a familiar dog-like shape. It freezes, a pair of pliers caught in its jaws.

Now here's something Kai forgot to tell us about.

The ethereal drops the pliers, and wags its tail. Makes a natural doggish sound at me.

"Nice try. But real dogs don't have eyes like that."

The hound huffs out a sigh. "Well. It was worth a try."

"One of Al's pets, I presume. Aren't you supposed to have a pack of your kind with you, and a hunter?"

"I misplaced them." The ethereal trots past me to the top of the stairs, and offers me a paw. "Pardon my intrusion. I thought you were still upstairs with the other one, and Al asked me to fetch pliers. I do hope there won't be any trouble."

I shake the paw offered to me. Dreams can abide a few ethereals running around on the corporeal plane if they're harmless and friendly, but my Boss isn't in the habit of ignoring the Sword's opinion on vesseled ethereals. Not unless they're immediately useful. A hound of the Wild Hunt hardly counts as harmless, no matter how friendly. "Trouble is bound to arrive, though from what direction is hard to say. Have you worked for your master long?"

"Al? For a few months. I haven't been outside this building." It scratches behind one ear. "I'm sure Kai was going to mention us to you when she thought it was a good time."

"No doubt." And leaving matters of timing to an Ofanite may work well in combat, but not for larger issues. Ofanim forget any matter they don't address directly, caught up in a shinier idea. "And when you say 'us'... How many ethereals are roaming this building?"

"Only two. We're well-behaved," the hound assures me, in an earnest voice I don't trust. "We can stay out of the way." It turns and leaves for wherever it is that young sorcerers keep their pliers. Next to their soul jars and ritual paraphernalia, perhaps.

Two ethereals is a manageable number, though two more than I'd like to deal with. When Kai claimed that the situation was complicated, he didn't go into the full details, and I ought to...ask him about that. Amets and Zif both assumed a sorcerer would mean ethereals, and perhaps Kai thought I would do the same. I don't like feeling as if I'm missing information. I can't work well with incomplete data. And Kai...isn't used to working with anyone at all. There's something for me to remember the next time I'm using her information.

At the door to the machine's room, I pause, and recall what Kai said about Al needing space. Instead of opening the door, I knock, and then step back.

"Hey," says Kai, poking her head out the door. "What's up?"

"We're going to need some supplies to work out temporary security measures. Do you have time to run out and pick some up for us?"

"Sure. I always have time." She slides out and shuts the door behind her. "Have a list?"

"I will, in just a moment." I pull out my notebook. "Do you need money? These are going to come to several hundred dollars worth of equipment."

"Jack dumped a load of cash on me before heading on," she says, "so I should be fine. Oh, and a talisman of some sort, none of us could figure out what Song it was holding, maybe you could take a look at it? It's in a shoebox in my backpack, in the room I'm using upstairs." She opens the door for the ethereal hound to enter the room. "Hi, Sirius. Find what you needed?"

"A-yuh," says the dog, around the pliers in its mouth. She closes the door again behind it.

"Kai?"

"Yes?"

"Were you planning on mentioning the ethereals, at some point?"

"Oh. Did I forget that part?" She takes the list I offer. "Just Sirius and Polly. Polly's not much to worry about, only three or four Forces, I think. A good watchbird, though; she may be useful for the Tether defenses. Can't talk, but can convey 'Intruder!' well in pantomime."

"And Sirius?"

"Loyal as can be. Not worth worrying about unless his old master shows up, and how likely is that?" She drops a kiss on my cheek, though she needs to stand on tiptoes to do it. "They'll be fine. I'll get this stuff for you, and be right back."

"It's barely past dawn, Kai." I follow her downstairs to the door through the basement, passing Zif on the way. My Cherub is occupied with measuring out the basement, and checking the walls. "None of the hardware stores will be open."

"Good point. I'll grab breakfast for Al, and then hit these places." She takes my hand when I pause at the door that connects to the adjoining building. "Come on, I want to show you something."

"What you got from Jean." I have my own suspicions, from what Zif said.

"Exactly." She drags me up through the basement and lobby of the apartment building, then out to an alley. At this time of day there's no one visible but pigeons searching for crumbs. "This? This is neat."

Disturbance buzzes by me, and there's a motorcycle there where there wasn't one before. Nothing remarkable to it, except that it appears...well-made. Someone has put all the pieces of it together in precisely the way a motorcycle ought to be made.

And given time, tools, and inspiration, I could make it better.

"How hard it is to hide the sparks of nature!" Kai laughs, and gets on the bike. "From _Cymbeline_ , Mannie. We never did get to see that play, did we? I'll have to find another performance to take you to. One without a pack of Gamesters interrupting. Want anything for breakfast? Everyone is doing breakfast tacos now, and they're customizable, which is way more fun than something boring that you can't do much with like pancakes."

"Nothing for me, thanks." I wave to her as she zooms off, and head back inside. Sports cars and motorcycles... Some angels really are that easy to win over. Though even this gift hasn't been enough to draw Kai over to Lightning. Not yet. I'll have to do something about that. Speed and art, and if Kai doesn't understand the mechanics, she can still appreciate what such things do.

Besides, anyone who hangs out with Windys as often as she does will appreciate better gas mileage. Less stopping.

And possibly a long-range attack system.

Zif is still measuring things in the basement. "Motorcycle, or car?"

"Motorcycle."

"Thought so. Didn't sound loud enough to be an entire car." She puts away the tape measure. "Did you remember to ask her to pick up copper wire?"

"It's on the list. What are you planning down here?"

"Temporary measures. We'll need to make sure everyone knows not to use the doors without proper security codes, once I'm finished. Defenses meant to give demons pause are likely to be uncomfortable for angels. More so for a human or ethereal."

"You've met them?"

Zif turns to regard me. "No, though I assumed some must be here. How many?"

"Two. Based on what Kai knows, which may be incomplete. The one I've seen is a hound of the Wild Hunt, or some shadow thereof, and quite well-spoken. I don't trust it. The other Kai knows of seems to be a weak and uncommunicative ethereal, set to watch for intruders."

Zif nods slowly. "So noted. If we must have ethereals running about, at least this Tether has forked to match Dreams, and not some other Word. The situation would become rapidly difficult with many others." She pulls a stretch of wire off the wall, and regards it critically. "And may yet become difficult when a triad arrives to speak with Kai. They'll want to investigate all her recent doings."

"So we send her to meet them outside the Tether, and...say nothing about not speaking of the ethereals. She's more likely to forget to mention them than be effective at subterfuge."

"I would prefer a more solid plan, but none better spring to mind."

"Agreed."

Back on the first floor, I pace out the distance from entrance to entrance. An attack coming from both would be difficult to defend against. We may be able to get away with removing one entrance entirely, once we've had time to begin proper renovations. The basement door needs to go, and the one on the roof... That might be acceptable, but only with far more defenses.

As I pass the room where this strange Tether began, the door opens a crack. "Hey."

The elusive Al. Through that fraction of door I can make out the green glow. "Good morning." I've never met a Gorgon, though I've run into sorcerers now and again.

"Kai's off buying supplies?" The suspicion running through his voice is as familiar as any old enemy. He'd fit in at any number of Vapulan labs.

"And breakfast." The door hasn't closed yet. "Mind if I come in?"

He hesitates, nods. "But don't touch anything."

"I think I can manage that." I step inside; he's moved back towards the machine, watching me over his shoulder. I shut the door behind me. "How's it going?"

"This is a good piece. It's complicated, but not so hard to put together as some. Mostly parts I can make quickly." Al touches his horns self-consciously, pulls his hand back down. The ethereal hound, Sirius, lies in a shadowy corner of the room, watching. High time that I put proper lighting in here. "Took me three tries to get the wiring right, but it's the way it should be now." 

Disjointed, as progress reports go, but a step up from refusing to see any of us. I pull over the chair Amets brought in, to sit down near the kid. Close enough to be in easy conversational distance, far enough away to not be hovering over his shoulder, at an angle where he can see me easily but isn't staring straight at me. I'd like to see what he Needs, if he'd bother to look me in the eyes. "You've done some impressive work so far." For an unskilled human working from memory with substandard tools, anyway. Not reaching out to correct the little imperfections begging for adjustment is harder than I'd realized it would be.

"Could be better." He's wiring a section into place, and it would be a smoother fit welded, but Kai would be annoyed if I told this human to stop messing with the parts and let me do it properly. "Especially when I started. Took me a while to figure out how to make the parts." He glances over his shoulder at me. "So you're Mannie, right?"

"Correct." I take the opportunity to take a look at his Needs, and discover an image not entirely surprising. Something to discuss with Kai privately, when she returns.

"So you're her boyfriend." Now a touch of challenge there. I could laugh at it. But one must respect the petty adolescent infatuations of the Tether-builder, and I'm not an Elohite to tell how he'd respond to laughter.

"That's one way to describe the relationship, I suppose."

"You know," Al says, his back to me again, "I'm fucking tired of that kind of answer. All this 'more or less' and 'about like that' and 'one term for it' shit. Why doesn't anyone give me a straight answer?"

"Because you're asking questions with complicated answers," I say. "It's faster to give approximate answers than to try to explain things."

"Fine. So explain this one to me. I have the time." He picks up a wrench to adjust a series of bolts. "How exactly is that 'one way to describe the relationship'?"

I am _not_ going to explain the last year of my life to this child. So I work out a reasonably true explanation, careful to watch my pronouns. "Kai and a few of her friends pulled me out of a dangerous situation, last year. And got into trouble herself in return, so that I needed to run back in and get her out of there. She...came out the worse for wear. Didn't hold it against me. She's not the sort to do so."

"And, what, the two of you started dating?"

If that's what one would call an Ofanite ambushing me in my office in Heaven, insisting I come outside and play once in a while... "We spent more time together. She ended up doing some work for my boss, got into further trouble. I, ah, seem to put her into danger more often than get her out of it, of late. Typically we work in different places, so this is the first time we've met in months." I firmly do not pay any attention to the petulant voice in the back of my mind demanding to know why Kai couldn't take the time to stop by a Tether and visit once in a while.

"Long-distance relationship, huh?" I don't like the hopeful tone behind that comment.

"I suppose. But you shouldn't make it out to be more than it is. Kai likes lots of people; I happen to be one of them, and nearby. Calling me her boyfriend is simpler than trying to explain all that." My Ofanite loves a hundred people and likes a thousand, as ready to run off with the Windies again as to wrap arms around me and promise to stay around. Drawing her into Lightning would pull her into orbit around something I can grasp.

"Guess so." He moves to another part of the machine, switches tools. Sirius rolls over to stay out of the way. The hound's eyes remain always on the boy, no matter where either goes. I've known Djinn and Cherubim both who obsess less on their attuned. "So you're a mechanic, or scientist, something like that?"

"Something like that. More theoretical research than practical application." Once I have time to settle down with Kai's new bike, I intend to change that.

"Huh." He turns to face me again, and I ping out another Need. Nothing more important than breakfast. "She says--does she really hunt demons? That's really her job?"

"Kai is apparently unable to go a month at a time without running into demons, hunting them or not. Fortunately, she's quite good at not getting killed in the process."

"Good," Al says. He passes the wrench back and forth from one hand to another. "That's the sort of thing I want on my side."

And then Kai's at the door with smiles and breakfast, a promise to pick up everything on the list I gave her, whirlwind of competent cheer. She tells me not to worry, and she's right. Kai knows how to take care of herself, and how to call for help when she can't. That's the sort of thing I want on my side.


	13. In Which Many People Are Not To Be Trusted

"They didn't have any sour cream?"

"Nope. I asked."

Al frowns at the remains of his breakfast burrito. "It's better with more sour cream. But it was okay."

I roll my eyes. "You're welcome." Mannie's left to do whatever sorts of security things one does for a new Tether, and while I'm glad Al let him in to talk, the kid seems to be in one of his grouchier moods.

"Sorry," says Al, and doesn't sound it. "There's just...a lot of stuff going on right now. Figuring things out." He puts the crumpled wrapper neatly into the bag I brought. "You don't all work for the same person, do you. I mean, like...different departments, or something. Sirius told me about how two of them were arguing, before. About how to do things."

I'd as soon sit down and have one of those "how the world works" talks here and now, the way I did with Sharon back after she shot a demon for me, but Zif told me point-blank not to go into detail. Something about jeopardizing Tether growth through celestial interference with the cause. I wonder how much of it is that Lightning likes making people work out things on their own, following the bread crumb trail of hints. "Pretty much. Amets works for one, Zif and Mannie for another, me for a third."

"So what's your department?"

"Creation." I spin, my arms wide. "Biggest Word out there, and the best. Of course, I'm incurably biased."

"Creation? So it covers making things?"

"And things that were made, and things that will be made. From puppies to painting, and a lot more. It's a beautiful world, isn't it?"

"Well... No. It's not. There's a lot of stuff out there that sucks. Can't say as it's all beautiful." He stifles a yawn; kid was up all night, listening to disturbance and fidgeting with his machine, and he could use some sleep now that it's creeping up on seven-thirty. "What about that part?"

"Simple. It's like changing the ending to _King Lear_."

"You lost me there, Kai."

"Okay. Did you ever study _King Lear_ , back in school?"

"No."

"Okay, so this makes the metaphor a little harder to follow, but try to stick with me here." I set out a pattern that'll take me past him three times a round. "The play ends with just about everyone dying off. Classic tragedy. And the people who don't keel over right on stage, it's implied they will soon. Classic tale of where abdicating responsibility and ignoring true fidelity leads you."

"You're...comparing all of the world to a tragedy?"

"Hey, it's a masterpiece of literature. Anyway, in certain time periods, people decided the play was too depressing. So they went and changed the ending. Ripped out how it actually went, and let certain people who were supposed to be dead only appear dead, spring back to life, everyone goes off happily into the sunset with the villains dead."

"Isn't this good?"

"No! Screws up the whole point of the play." I seem to have picked up a few emphatic hand gestures from Mannie. Only fair, since I gave him my caffeine addiction. "It negates a whole series of points about actions having consequences, and lets everyone who screwed up off the hook with nothing more than a 'Oh, wow, guess the bad guys took care of themselves!' Trades in a false bit of cheer for the meat of the story. What does it matter that the king threw out the only daughter loyal to him if they're cheerfully reunited at the end? All the rage and pain and effort, tied up nicely with a schmaltzy greeting-card ending. Instead of a lot of conflicted people making mistakes, there's the good guys, the bad guys, and the good guys win, ta-da, the end."

"And the world is bad because it has a happy ending?"

"No, no. The world is still a marvelous place. But it's all tied up in knots by people who keep trying to change the ending to what they think will make it a better story."

"And what about all the bad stuff that just happens, not because of anyone? Earthquakes, for example."

"People figured out where major fault lines are. They're supposed to use that knowledge to do something about it, not keep building there." I sweep him a bow. "Besides, geology is so not my strong point. I'm not trying to explain away all the evils of the world. I'm saying the problem lies not in the play as written, but the interpretation of the actors and directors."

"Huh. Maybe." I'm reminded of why I always liked the beginner classes better. Children are easier to work with than teenagers. Thank God and all the Archangels above that relievers don't go through this stage before fledging. "What're you doing next?"

"Off to pick up supplies. Security systems for the building, that sort of thing. Zif and Mannie will be rigging something up. Mostly at the entrances to start with. We don't want anyone running in here without warning, and while Polly's diligent, she can't cover the whole building. Anything you want me to get for you while I'm out?"

"I'm all set." Al yawns again. "Maybe I'll take a nap. Was up all night, especially when you got so _noisy_ downstairs. What were you doing down there?"

"Checking in with a few people's Bosses, and getting this place set up to work properly."

"Could you vague that up some more? Because I'm still actually getting pieces of information, around the edges." He pulls himself to his feet. "Definitely going to bed. C'mon, Sirius."

"If I go into details," I say, "we're going to be here another hour or three." I wish we had an Elohite here, to tell me what's going on behind Al's sullen fits and bursts of annoyance. Never wanted to be able to look into anyone's head myself, but it can be useful when dealing with teenagers. And it occurs to me that either Al's a better actor than I'd give him credit for, or Sirius hasn't been passing on all the information I know he's worked out. How does the hound choose to define his loyalty? "If you're heading upstairs, you might run into Amets. He's a nice guy, if a bit grouchy sometimes." And unlikely to be too stern at anyone who helped form a Dreams Tether.

"Amets? What does he look like?"

"Looks about thirteen, my height, T-shirt and jeans."

"You let _kids_ work for your organization?" I can't tell if that's indignation or envy in his voice. If he can work himself into something more like maturity, Al might make a decent Soldier of God himself.

"He's older than he looks. Mannie and Zif are the ones to talk to about your machine, but Amets is the one to talk to about those dreams you had. He's a specialist."

"Maybe. I'm tired." This yawn is theatric. No, Al _cannot_ act to save his life. "Night. Morning. Whatever."

I pass Zif on the way out. Her celestial form is more expressive than her vessel; she only gives me a glance as I pass by, and returns to whatever she's doing in the basement. "Knock before you enter when you return," she says. "We may have preliminary systems set up by then."

"How are you going to handle power? Can't imagine you can run everything you need on a power cord running from a standard outlet."

"Nosha is bringing a generator when it shows up," Mannie says. He steps down the stairs to the basement carefully, a metal box in his arms. "A few pieces of equipment are being sent down for interim security, but it's not worth making the cheap and simple pieces artifacts to swap between planes. Thus the list." He puts down the box, and dusts off his jacket. "Incidentally, Kai, the boy is infatuated with you."

"Potentially useful," says Zif. "Or dangerous. What sort of Need did you see, Mannie?"

"What you'd expect from an adolescent male."

I run a hand through my hair; about time to whack some of it off again. It's nearly long enough to fall in my eyes in the front. "I've dealt with students having a crush on me before. Happens all the time when you're dealing with kids. He'll get over it."

Zif raises one eyebrow. "And how many times has the infatuation come from a teenage sorcerer, before?"

"Never? But...point taken. I'll be careful. I'm no Elohite, though; can't tell how much is serious emotion and how much is wanting some friends."

"Nosha will be able to help." Mannie opens up the box, and begins pulling out bits of equipment that I couldn't identify. "It ought to be here by the time you get back."

Outside, I snap my bike into existence. Best present I've ever gotten, aside from what my Boss has given me. Must find time to take Mannie for a ride, he hasn't had a chance to watch me take a motorcycle to top speed. And once we get outside city streets, I can find out how fast this bike will go. LightningTech suggests _really, really fast_ as an answer.

I ask the Symphony about hardware shops, keep to the speed limit on the way. I've lost track of what day of the week it is, but either it's a weekend or not many people are commuting to work this early. I hit the parking lot ten minutes before the store's scheduled to open, if the time on my phone and their internal clocks match up at all.

So I have a good parking spot. I pace out the front of the building, seeing what I can of the sections through the dark windows. If I can't pack everything on my bike I might have to make two trips, but you can do amazing things with cardboard and duct tape, both of which they're bound to have inside.

A car pulls up in the parking lot next to my bike, and a woman about my height steps out. Short hair, practical clothing, and faint smudges on her hands from working on something messy. Got to approve of that. "Not open yet?" she asks, walking up near me to stand at the doors.

"Five more minutes, assuming they open on what the schedule says."

Her smile is sweet, warm, the sort of thing that makes me want to hug strangers. "Eager to get started on some big weekend project?"

"Nah, just picking up some stuff for a friend." I pull out the list to refresh my memory. I don't even know some of the _words_ on there, but surely one of the people working inside will be able to help me out. "You?"

"A personal project. Everyone needs a hobby, after spending so much time at work." She stretches, then shoves her hands into deep pockets, the sort you can keep interesting things in. "What's your friend working on?"

"Don't know precisely. I'm running errands so that he can do all the planning and finicky stuff. Not really the scientific sort, myself." I fold the list into an origami crane, unfold it again. "It'll work well, though, whatever he ends up with. He's good at making things."

"Best of luck," she says, and the employees finally unlock the doors to let us inside.

I grab a cart, wait until I'm out of immediate sight of anyone to run it forward, jump on the back and let it spin. Shopping carts aren't exactly cars, but they have their own amusement. Sort of like reliever-level transportation. And then, my own amusement taken care of, I start asking the Symphony questions about how to find things in this vast store full of things I never imagined people would do to their houses.

I run into the woman who I met outside in the aisle with the spools of wire. She smiles at me again, dropping a package of something into the basket she's carrying. "Finding everything you need?"

"I think so. Some of these things I'm going to have to ask about, though. I can't find a, um, ferrule if I don't know what it is."

"Oh, that's just a bushing to use on a pipe joint." She giggles at my blank look, and covers her mouth with one hand. "Sorry, that doesn't help at all, does it? It's a...here, I'll show you where you can find them, that'll be easier than trying to describe them to you. They're halfway across the store."

"No problem. Not like I mind the walk."

Two aisles down my phone rings. "Excuse me." I pull it out and flip it open; the display says it's coming from one of the general Sparky lines. "Hello?"

"Kai! I got more information." That's Maharang's voice on the other line, not who I'd expected at all.

"More information? What about?"

"About the community center." Its voice shades into hurt. "You asked me to look into it, didn't you?"

"Yes, but I only needed--no, wait, more information is great. What did you find out?" The woman walks along studying the end cap displays in the manner of someone trying not to listen in on a private conversation. I'm told the acoustics on this phone have been designed such that it's virtually impossible for anyone to overhear what's being said on the other side, but it's probably time to watch my own words.

"Larch Street Community Center, the name was neat, and I was looking up more about the trees and found the name of the place again, except not by the name, just talking about Larch Street." I should probably be grateful Maharang is more to-the-point than I was when I had that five Forces. "But I looked up the address instead, and looked in all _sorts_ of places, and it used to be a Tether before, Kai. The Tether died fast when the place got closed down, which makes all the parts they didn't talk about in the newspaper articles make more sense. Must have managed to take out the Seneschal."

"Who did it belong to, before?" I can half guess the answer.

"Creation. Of course, now it's Lightning and Dreams, but that's who it used to belong to. Do you know if it's maybe easier for a new Tether to form where an old one used to be?"

"I don't know, kid. Maybe you could look it up?" If there's anyone likely to have studied that in detail, it would be Lightning.

"I ought to do that. How's he doing?"

"Mannie? Seems to be having fun. And on your end?" We've reached the aisle, and I really ought to wrap up the conversation with this woman waiting on me.

"Goes great! Nosha just left with the generator. I'm going to go do _research_ now. Maybe I can even write up a report and send it down to them. I'm almost done designing a coffee lid desktop tray for phone messages!"

"Good luck with that, then." I close the phone, tuck it away. "Sorry about that."

"Oh, I don't mind." The woman picks up a package. "These are ferrules. You'll want--well, it's hard to say without knowing the specifications. Mind if I take a look at the list?" I pass over the piece of paper. "Eighth inch ones, not three sixteenth. This set here."

"Thanks for the help." She returns the list to me, and I mark off another item. "Looks like that's almost it."

"Always happy to help." The woman glances up and down the aisle, and her smile turns a touch Windy at the edges. "Besides, I can recognize a Sparky shopping list when I see one. Glad to hear Mannie is doing well." She laughs at my half step backwards. "It's nothing major, I'm no Sparky myself. I've worked with them before, though, and once with him. It's not as if I could _forget_ him."

"He does have a memorable personality, doesn't he?"

"You don't know the half of it," she says, and then gives me a more serious look. "Or maybe you do." She offers a hand, and her handshake is as pleasant as everything else about her. Must be a Mercurian, doesn't have the right kind of vessel for a Cherub. "The name's Amity." It's even a Mercurian sort of name. "He'll remember me if you tell him that I did that filing for him, once. Now that was quite the project. Actually, could you pass on a message? Nothing urgent, I meant to send him a note when it was convenient, but as long as you're here..."

"I'm Kai. I'd be happy to help. What's the message?"

Her face goes a little dreamy for a moment, like she's listening to a message inside her head. "Just let him know that his brother is heading into town. Vague, I know, but he'll understand what I mean, and this isn't the time or place to go into details, understood?"

"Got it." I toss the package into my cart. "Do you live around here? I haven't had a chance to hook up with anyone yet, not that I'm sure how long I'm going to be in town myself. Depends on where the Boss sends me next." He's bound to call again, isn't he? I did what he asked, there has to be another assignment waiting for me.

"I'm only passing through. From one project to another. Always a new idea to work on." Amity sounds like a Sparky, even if she says she isn't one. Former Vapulan who ended up with a different Word after redeeming, maybe. That would explain the hardware store hobby. "Here, let me help you finish your list."

With her identifying the stranger pieces on the list, I'm finished sooner than I expected, cart piled with things from ferrules to datacom bridging modules. Outside, she holds the box while I tape, until it's all neatly packaged on the back of my bike. "Thanks again for the help."

"Always happy to give assistance." Amity gives me a cheery wave as I leave.

Halfway back to the Tether, I catch a faint rattle of disturbance, not coming from that direction. Now that the Tether's stable I don't have to worry so much about trying to keep things quiet, but disturbance is disturbance, and I'm running ahead of schedule. I swerve between cars across three lanes to make a hard right turn. This shouldn't take long.

By the time I hit about the place it sounded to come from, the jangle has faded away, and there's no one visible outside the battered little house. My fingers tap out the 1812 Overture on the handlebars, and I consider. Could be anything from some Windy dropping a vase during house-breaking to an Impudite of Death using a Song to keep a human weak, and then strangling said human to death. I need to get back into a job with a set territory to roam, where I know more about who's where doing what, and can make reasonable guesses about what's going on. One of the plus sides of having a Windy roommate is that for all the mess Jack's friends made every time he stepped by, at least I knew they were in town and behind the havoc.

Which reminds me that I ought to call Judgment and let them know I'm in the area, if they wanted to send a triad by. Haven't seen anyone from that Word since I started riding with the Windies, except for those two times we ran into them in the midst of other things. Definitely no proper triad investigating, and after decades of answering questions about what I've been up to lately, I miss that. It was comforting to know they'd watch out for me and tell me if I went wrong.

Another whisper of disturbance. Since when have I been the sort to sit around considering my next move? I disappear my bike and tromp across an untended lawn. The gate to the fenced back yard has a cheap lock on it, can't see the point when the fence is that easy to scale. I make some minimum effort to be quiet, and head for the back of the house.

The woman is in her early twenties, dark circles under her eyes, and she's backed up against the door to the yard. "Just go away," she says, weak little voice with no power behind it. "I told you, go away." A pot lies broken on the tiny patio, dirt and plant scattered out.

"Not going anywhere," says the man. His vessel screams Djinn, burly and full of slow menace. He kicks another potted plant over, more disturbance as the second pot breaks. I can't see what made the first noise I heard. "You can't jerk me around like that. Tell me you want me, then tell me to go away. You asked me in, I'm staying."

"I'll get a restraining order."

"You think a piece of paper is going to keep me away?" The demon shrugs. "You want to think that, go ahead. I'll see you again tonight." He leans forward to whisper to her, "You go to sleep, I'll be there. Just wait and see."

And then he slams the door to the house open, stalks through. I can hear the front door open, slam shut again from where I'm standing. The woman collapses into a sniffling heap on the patio.

I scramble back over the fence, see the Djinn stomping down the street. Time to play. I follow behind, checking my pockets for anything interesting. I _could_ beat a Djinn to death with my phone, but the Sparkies might get upset. You'd think they'd appreciate creative uses of the things they make, but some of them get all huffy about using tech in exciting new ways. Handful of change, shopping list, remaining cash, Jack's talisman key, nothing thematically appropriate. Taking out demons satisfies so much more when I can do it with dramatic irony.

The Djinn notices I've been following him after three blocks. He stops, turns to glare at me. "What the fuck do you want?"

I grin. "Nothing much." He's wearing a watch, the kind with a stretchy band. Easy to get off with a quick grab. "What's your problem?"

"She set you on me to tell me off?" He steps in close enough to loom in a manner that might intimidate someone who wasn't me. "You can get your nose out of our business. Doesn't concern you."

"All sorts of things concern me." I kick up a broken chunk of brick from where it's been lying so enticingly, catch it in one hand. Amets will complain about missing this. "You're determined to continue? Because I like to give people half a chance. Just in case." The brick has a comfortable heft to it, not so good as that cue ball I used until it fell off a roof, but solid in my hand.

"Look, bitch, if you don't get out of my face right now--"

"You stalk her dreams, don't you? She can't get a decent night's sleep. There when she wakes up, there when she's asleep." I toss and catch the piece of brick. If I've guessed wrong, if this is a Djinn of a Word other than Nightmares--well, doesn't matter. Either way, I intend to take care of the problem. Demons on Earth are my business. "Someone special you were set on, or just the first person you chose?"

His eyes go wide. Looks like my first guess was right. The swing he throws at me is inelegant, plenty of force behind it and little skill. I pull off his watch as the wrist goes by, tell it that such an honorable timepiece ought not be associated with scum like this, and slam it into the Djinn's face.

I didn't expect him to turn and run _that_ fast. It's a surprise to see the burly figure flee, pull himself over a fence to dash through someone's back yard. But, hey, all the more fun this way. I am speed and fire, and if I'm no child of Gabriel sent to punish the cruel, I'm an angel of the Host, and demon-smiting falls under my job description.

Faster than I'd expect of a Djinn, which means it's only _easy_ to catch up with him rather than something I could do with my eyes closed and one hand tied behind my back. I reach him three backyards down, slam him with his own watch, and he...falls backwards into the pool, pulling the loose plastic sheet stretched across down in with him.

I crouch by the side of the pool while he flails within the tarp's folds. "What, did they not teach you to swim before sending you down?" And then I offer him a hand out, because it would be impolite to leave someone's pool bloody.

He refuses the hand, trying to claw himself out of the plastic. It only tangles him further. "My Most Dread Lady will have your head for this, angel."

"I don't think your Unholy Terror is much concerned about a Djinn who turns tail and runs at the first sign of trouble," I say, hand still out. "You _are_ new, aren't you."

The Djinn finally claws his way to the edge of the pool, and heaves himself out. That's one reason I like smaller vessels, less weight to haul around when circumstances require this sort of thing. "I'm not afraid of you," he snarls. "Can't even attack me when I'm down."

I stand up, and twirl his watch around one finger. "I'm no Swordie, but I try to give opponents a sporting chance." When no one but me is in danger, anyway; I'm not so foolish as to put in less than my full efforts when others might be affected. But this is only a young demon of Nightmares, overconfident and underprepared.

"And, what, you think I'll fall at your feet in gratitude?" He staggers back to his feet, dripping water and blood. "Don't think so."

"It's worth a try. I don't want to bother someone about heading out here to help me with body disposal. Do you have any idea how inconvenient it is to get rid of dead vessels?" I have an excellent idea of how inconvenient that can be, having aided in the process more times than I can remember.

"Not afraid of you," says the Djinn, sullen as any teenager.

"And people say I'm not the brightest celestial out there. Though Nightmares was supposed to have high-ethereal demons."

He tries to run once more, but doesn't even reach the fence between this yard and the next. When I'm finished, he's a bloody crumpled heap, and I have a stinging bruise on one shoulder where I didn't dodge quite fast enough. I pull out my phone and call Mannie.

"Problem, Kai?"

"Ran into a demon. Not much of one. Nightmares. Can you send Amets by to give me a hand with it? I need to get rid of the body before whoever lives in this house comes home."

He sighs, on the other end. "You _could_ find trouble in a Zen garden, couldn't you?"

"I've gone weeks at a time without running into demons. Months, even!" I laugh. "Come on, you can't expect me to hear disturbance and not check it out. One less potential security risk in the city."

"Are you injured?"

"Nah," I say, rubbing my shoulder. The ache is already fading. "But I don't have the equipment I'd need to dispose of an entire dead body inconspicuously."

A brief pause, presumably while Mannie tracks down his hook on me. "I'll send him over right away."

I occupy myself with pulling the tarp out of the pool, and getting bloodstains off the concrete. No sound from inside the house. I'd rather not explain to some family why there's a dead body lying in the grass next to their lawn chairs.

When Amets clambers over the fence, he stalks straight to the demon's vessel and pokes it. "Really is dead," he says. "You couldn't have called me earlier?" He's acquired another T-shirt, this one diagramming the chemical structure of chocolate. Definitely supplied by Sparkies.

"What, you wanted me to hold a phone conversation while I was chasing him? Climbing fences one-handed isn't _that_ easy." Amets begins unpacking pieces of black plastic from his backpack. I take the hacksaw he offers. "How are we going to transport the pieces?"

"Nosha arrived, and drove me here."

"I thought its vessel looked about eight years old." I roll the body over onto the first piece of plastic. "Or does it have a backup vessel?"

"Backup, yes." Nosha strolls towards us, a hacksaw under his arm. This vessel manages to be ambiguous both in gender and age, but the neat suit and tie suggest male rather than female. "Not every situation is well-suited to the appearance of a child. Good morning, Kai."

Between the three of us, we get the vessel reduced to fun-size pieces and sealed in plastic within a few minutes. Nosha and I pack the bundles into the trunk of his marvelously fast LightningTech car while Amets removes blood traces from the lawn. "You have an unusual talent for finding trouble," Nosha says. "It's fortunate your Archangel prepared you for it. When did you pick up the Malakite of Creation attunement?"

"Second time I lost my vessel." The bags are unpleasantly squishy, despite several layers of wrapping. "He told me that if I was going to keep jumping demons, I ought to be better at it."

"Did you ever consider fledging Malakite?" Nosha shuts the trunk, and sits on top of it. The tie he wears looks natural rather than absurd, which isn't a trick I've seen many people pull off. Never did understand what good that piece of clothing was, except for a handy noose.

"No, not my style. Did think about Kyrio for a while."

"Really? I wouldn't have guessed." He tilts his head, the Elohite expression of "I'm trying to figure out what makes you tick." This vessel is so ambiguous as to be noticeably unusual, and there are three silver loops in one of his ears. Got to wonder what this particular vessel was made for; most Elohim go for appearances that let them blend in or take on some familiar role, the way Nosha's cute-little-girl vessel does. "Why Kyriotate and Ofanite, as choices?"

"I wanted to see things. I could either be a bunch of places at once, or go for speed. Chose speed; didn't want to have to deal with using someone else's body. Not my style." I admire the car from hubcaps to headlights. "How did you end up Elohite?"

"I was made this way. I find the choices of those who fledged interesting. Relievers have so many different reasons for making that final decision." Nosha stands up as Amets approaches. "Finished?"

"The back yard is as clean as it's going to get. If the family notices anything odd, they'll likely assume wildlife quarreled there." The Malakite claims the shotgun seat. "Now let's get back before anything tries to jump the Tether. Who knows who else might be in this city?"

Nosha hands me the keys. I knew I liked Elohim for a reason. "That reminds me," I say, once I've pulled out of the little run-down neighborhood. "It would be useful to find out what other angels live near here, in case we need to call for backup when not around the Tether. Ran into one already at the hardware store, but she's not local, only passing through."

"They ought to be sending down those records with everything else once the Seneschal arrives," Nosha says. "Part of the standard package." He doesn't seem to mind the way I drive, though I do take care not to get _too_ close to any other cars. I'd hate to scratch this one. Summonable, speedy, and shiny. Nearly as neat as my motorcycle.

"I shouldn't be surprised that Lightning has a standard set of procedures for newly-established Tethers." I cut off an SUV, and grin at its honking. Shouldn't have been trying to swap lanes in the middle of an intersection, should it? "Hey, do you know who Amity is? Seemed like a nice sort, and if she's worked with Lightning before, and happens to be between assignments, she might be able to lend us a hand."

"The name isn't familiar. Did she say what project she worked on?"

"Not specifically. Something about filing." I shrug, and park the car in the alley next to the community center for onlooker-free unsummoning. "I guess I can ask Mannie."

I summon my bike down in the basement, pass the box to Zif, and unsummon the motorcycle again. I am _never_ going to get tired of that, though I might run out of Essence if I keep doing it. "Everything on the list. Where's Mannie?"

"Working on the system for the roof entrance." The Cherub takes the box and sets it aside with the array of who-knows-what spread out from the box Lightning delivered. There's now a humming bit of machinery in the corner of the basement, with several cords leading out; that must be the new generator. "Would you mind looking in on Al? I heard disturbance from his room, but didn't wish to confront him. He's likely to respond better to you."

"Oh. Crud. Any idea what he did?" There goes my good mood. I had a feeling he might get adolescent on us again, and sorcerers are even more likely than your average teenager to assert their sense of control.

"I wouldn't know. He may only be spending Essence to help him succeed on some part of his project." Zif leaves the possibility that he's practicing sorcery again open, waiting between the two of us. "If you'd prefer, I can speak with him myself."

"No, you're right, he's more likely to tell me what's going on." And I intend to find out what Al is up to, if I have to drag him downstairs to sulk in front of Nosha for a reading on his emotions.

I take the stairs three at a time, and find Sirius lying outside Al's door. "I would like to make clear, at this point," Sirius says, "that I _told_ him this was a bad idea."

Oh, that doesn't bode well. "What's he been doing?"

Sirius flops over onto one side. "None of my business, he says. I call it my business. Can't protect him if he's running off being foolish. Sorcery is dangerous. I thought he meant to get out of it entirely."

I wince. "And you're right on both counts. It is your business, and it is dangerous." I rap on the door. "Al?"

"Come on in," he calls back.

Inside the room, a pretty young woman sits next to him, dressed in next to nothing. "Kai," Al says, gesturing to her. "Sorry about this, I just...needed to work something out."

"Al..."

The ethereal blows a kiss at me, and laughs. Essence-use chimes out disturbance around her, accompanied by a touch of fuzz on my mind. "Shall I go, now?" Whatever she tried doesn't seem to have done anything , though I'm annoyed she'd try.

"Yes. Do." She vanishes in another jangle of disturbance, and Al spreads his hands out apologetically. "I should have told you about this, but you were out and I...didn't think you'd approve."

"I don't." I sit down on the chair opposite his stack of mattresses. "It's dangerous, for all sorts of reasons both spiritual and physical. What were you doing?" 

"I had some questions. Needed to work things out." He leans over and pours two cups of coffee. "I got the coffee maker working. Couldn't sleep anyway, so I might as well caffeinate today and crash later. What time is it?"

"Coming up on ten." It's been a busy morning, and while I'm all for keeping moving, I'd like to hope the afternoon is at least _differently_ busy. I accept the cup of coffee as the apology it seems to be. "I'm worried, Al. You didn't even tell Sirius what you were up to."

"And I think Sirius isn't telling me everything either, so turnaround is fair play." He's more subdued than he was over breakfast. I wonder how much of his Essence he spent on his ritual; any traces of what he's done have been removed. "I needed to know stuff, okay?"

"That didn't look like a spirit of information, Al." The coffee's not so strong as I'd like, but within its depths lurks that marvelous buzz of holy energy.

He blushes under the green glow. "I, uh, didn't realize she'd show up like that." And of him I could almost believe he'd call up that ethereal to ask questions, not for typical teenage reasons. "Look, if I can get a straight answer. What do you think about me? I mean... do you really care about me, or are you just here for the whatever it is that goes on downstairs?"

I leave the chair to sit beside him on the bed. "I do care about you, Al. I'm going to do my best not to let you get hurt, and I want what's best for you. That's why I'm trying to get you away from sorcery. You do _not_ want to anger some of the people who'd hold that against you."

"I understand." He turns his coffee mug around in his hands; he's barely touched the stuff. "I just... I _want_ things, and I can't always figure out how to get them, and then there's this whole world of possibilities that opens up if I only perform the right ritual."

"It's a big world, Al. Plenty of possibilities without ever touching sorcery."

He leans in to kiss me. Awkward enough that I don't think he's done this much before. "I won't do it again," he says, when he breaks away. "I promise."

"Good." I kiss him back, and there's something strange in the back of my mind, like someone telling me this isn't a good idea. But that voice is very far away, and Al's right here, needing a hug and then some and proof that this world isn't so bad.

Surely the Boss would approve.


	14. In Which I Do Not Like Any Of This Damn News

I finish with the rooftop door, and traipse downstairs to check on other progress. Nosha, wearing an adult vessel, has taken over the process of working on the first-floor doors. "Afternoon," he says, as I approach. "Do you know, I'm finding traces of an old security system that was removed. This may make installation faster."

"Convenient." I lean against the door he's working on, and pass him a wrench. "Where's everyone else?"

"Amets has stepped outside to meet some of the neighbors, that he might better notice strangers and suspicious people in the future. Though he did flee back inside once, having been too eagerly pursued by young adolescents. Zif is downstairs working on basement security and generator hookups." He shuts the panel he's just finished installing, and spins the combination on the lock. "Kai has been talking with Al about some recent misstep."

"What, she's still doing that?"

"Apparently so. I stopped by the room, but an ethereal spirit at the door asked that I move on, as the proceedings inside were private. When I knocked at the door, Kai told me she was busy, so I chose to accept this as true." Nosha returns the wrench to the tool box that lies open beside him. "What were you debating asking me?"

I could sometimes do without the Elohite ability to read emotions. "About the Tether you were Seneschal for. When you still served Death."

"I see." Nosha picks up his toolbox and equipment, and moves on towards the other door. "What did you want to know about it?"

"I...don't know. What it was like, to be attuned to something that closely connected to Death. How you acquired the position. None of my questions are necessary."

"Curiosity is a common trait among Servitors of Jean," Nosha says. He sets down his tools by the western entrance. "I indulge in it myself, when there is no reason to do otherwise. I can't hold it against anyone else." He begins excavating the plastered-over space where some box of electronics had once been installed beside the door. I pass him the tools as he needs them. I ought to be doing something more productive, and not bothering him with my questions. "To answer briefly. Being a Seneschal, and I was Word-bound, not only attuned, brought with it more power than I'd ever had before, or since. I served the Word of Death efficiently and eagerly until Saminga noted my efforts, and gave me a position of greater responsibility."

He pauses for a moment, dealing with buried wiring that needs to be removed before he can continue. I begin assembling the equipment he'll be installing. "I have no right to pry, Nosha."

"The knowledge may be useful to you. Nearly all knowledge may be useful, and it is difficult to predict what will be so, beyond the most obvious." He seals away the last wire, and takes the piece from me. "Thank you. I believe there's still a question you wish to ask that you haven't."

"Why did you leave?"

"The reasons were complex. But the catalyst event? There was a raid on the Tether I guarded. I drove the attackers off, and in the process killed the vessel of a Cherub who had once served Raphael alongside me." Nosha installs the piece precisely, efficiently, every motion of his fingers perfect for what the job requires. I could never find fault in his work.

"A Lightning raid?"

"No, Creation. Not all of her Servitors turned to Jean." He takes a piece of wire from my hands, not looking at me, and I suddenly wonder what I would see if I tried to read his Needs now. "I was supervising the cleanup, and looking at her vessel, found myself wishing I could visit her Heart, wait for her to revive." Nosha gives me a smile, distant and sad. "That was when my delusions, built up so carefully, broke apart. I was no angel, sent to punish the weak, but only a demon who'd turned against all she once held dear. It was a mockery of Raphael's sacrifice to have become what I was."

"And so you ran."

"Yes. Back to a Tether where I'd served when I was very young. It no longer connected to Knowledge, but to Lightning." Nosha finishes with this piece, and begins to install the panel to cover it. "I hadn't even taken the time to break my Heart. I begged them to call down Jean, to let me be stripped apart by one who would understand."

"You survived, though." The one who understands us, every Force held together as he brought us into Heaven.

"I did. I was...disappointed. It would have been easier to be ripped and destroyed entirely, to not live with what I had done." Nosha closes the panel, spins the lock, and turns to face me. I don't dare to read anything in his calm eyes. "I lost more than half my Forces in the process. I dared to hope that I'd be lost entirely, but I was not. Afterwards, it would have been too subjective and selfish to wish for destruction. So I performed the tasks I was given."

I close my eyes. I will read something in his, if I don't. "It's painful for you to talk about this. I shouldn't have asked."

"And if I allow my pain to direct my actions? I've been down that path before, Mannie." When I open my eyes, Nosha smiles at me, the same expression I've seen when he sits in my office with a cookie in hand. "I'm not offended by the questions. I thought you would ask them earlier. Now, which part of the building should we improve next?"

#

By the time sunset arrives, we've installed lighting throughout the first floor, and on every staircase. Zif finds us on the staircase between the fifth and sixth floors, debating the merits of proper lighting through the building versus alarms on the windows of the higher floors. "I'm having trouble tracking down the holder of the deed. The director of the community center held it, but after his death, it was passed on to...well. No one seems to be sure. I may have better luck on Monday when more offices are open."

"Ask Maharang," Kai says. She stands at the bottom of the stairs, a few steps behind Zif, and looks...tired. "This place used to be a Tether of Creation, so it's likely the deed passed on to another Creationer after that Tether was destroyed. Maharang has been researching the building's history, and may know who has the deed now."

Zif nods, and walks back down the stairs. "Thank you," she says, and the look she gives me is one Kai can't see. I don't even need the hint.

My Ofanite walks up the rest of the stairs, less spring to her steps than there ought to be. One stair at a time. "Kai," Nosha says, "what's wrong?"

"I'm stupid sometimes," she says, "that's all." And wraps her arms around me when she's close enough.

Nosha's eyes widen at whatever he's reading. "I ought to get back to installing the lights on the second floor," he says, and leaves hastily.

I pull Kai down the hallway, the staircase lights providing enough illumination that I can see her clearly. Not that there's much to see, with her head buried in my chest. "What happened?"

"Been stupid. That's all." She pulls away from me. "Al's been dabbling in sorcery. He promised he wouldn't try it again, but last time he said he wouldn't do it anymore either, so how can I trust him?"

"What did he call up?" If the boy had summoned demons or anything hostile, we'd have heard the fight, and Kai wouldn't be looking so miserable. She _likes_ combat.

"Some ethereal with more control over the emotions of others than I'd like." She begins pacing around me, a tight anxious orbit. "And sent it away promptly, little good that it did me by that point. But I am. Annoyed." Her hands are clenched. "Effects wore off about an hour ago. Had a talk with Al. He swears up and down that he won't try it again, but I can't _trust_ him anymore. It's not like he even meant any harm by it, he's just a screwed-up kid who got raised to believe he ought to take what he wants, no thought for others. And he's getting better. But I can't trust him."

I take hold of her wrists, keeping her facing me for a moment. "What did he do to you?"

"Nothing I haven't done before. But it wasn't _right_." She smiles crookedly at me. "The Boss didn't approve. And even noticing that didn't snap me out of it until the mind-twist wore off."

All the pieces coming together, like an equation reducing to a line. I'd be halfway down the stairs if she weren't holding onto me now, hands around my wrists in turn. "Don't," she says.

"Don't! That little bastard--"

"Needs some serious psychological help, among other things." She's stronger than I am, and isn't about to let go. I stop pulling before she has to decide between bruising my wrists and letting me go. "If Yves can spare an Elohite of Destiny to come in and talk to the kid, that would be ideal. Might not happen. But you getting angry about this isn't going to help anyone."

"It would make me feel better."

"And I would love to make you feel better, Mannie. But not like that." She releases me, and I know enough about Ofanim by now to respect the favor she's doing by standing still in front of me. "No matter what he looks like, he's still _human_. Amazing potential to screw up and to do wonderful things. He's managed both. Humans are like that."

"And you're going to let him...get away with that."

"Hell, no. I told him if he tried anything like that on me again, he'd end up with bits of his own machine wedged down his throat, and I'd do worse if he tried on anyone else. Last I checked, Al was curled up being apologetic and weepy and self-pitying. Ten to one Nosha and Zif are down there with him right now, working through that. But he counts himself to have two real friends, and the other one's an ethereal spirit who will have to leave if his old master returns. So I'm not going to abandon him." She folds her arms. "No matter how much I may be annoyed at the brat. That was horribly immature."

" _Immature_? We're talking about a sorcerer who summoned up ethereal spirits to mind-fuck an angel so that he could have sex with you!"

"In his defense," Kai says mildly, "he doesn't know I'm an angel. But, yes, I wouldn't call it his most shining moment. Fortunately, considering what he's capable of, it's unlikely to be his fate either."

Any number of people would be put out if I followed through with what I'd like to do right now. And so I take a few deep breaths, and try to channel my inner Elohite. "You're taking this well."

"I've been through worse. The time I was caught by the Game, for one." Which was so through and through my fault that it can't be coincidence that's the first example she brings up. "Besides, I'm not good at staying angry at people for long. Especially a kid who's looking like a puppy who's been caught peeing on the living room carpet."

"If I had a rolled-up newspaper..."

Kai actually laughs. "Zif knows all about rolled-up newspapers. They'll take care of the problem, okay? So relax."

"Relax."

"Yes." She kisses me, more seriously than usual, and then spins off to do airy loops around me. "I've lost limbs and vessels to demons before, I've been Charmed and Essence-drained by Impudites, lied to by Balseraphs, taunted by Habbalah, hooked by Lilim, and blasted by Calabim. Having sex with one human when I didn't mean to? Pretty low on the list of traumatic events. If you're upset, I won't tell you not to be, but don't do it on my account."

"I'm not good at maiming anyway. Not without proper equipment."

"That's the spirit." She pauses, mid-step. "Oh, I almost forgot. A friend of yours I met earlier today asked me to give you a message."

"A friend of mine?" Most of the people who I'd call that are in this building, or have my phone number.

"Or someone you worked with. Said she wasn't a Sparky herself, but had done work with Lightning. Name's Amity."

A few dozen Lightning Servitors I've worked with briefly since I reached Heaven, fewer from other Words who were helping us out with something. "The name isn't familiar."

"Said she did some sort of filing job for you? I don't know, she was being kinda vague around the edges."

I have used up too many different emotions in the last twenty-four hours. I'm starting to run out. "What message did, ah, Amity give you?"

"Said your brother was coming to town. How does that even work?"

...oh. Hell.

"I'll explain later." I run down the stairs, Kai right behind me. "Zif!"

She meets me on the third floor. "Problem?"

"Aglaya met up with Kai this morning. Said that Hari's coming into the city, and I don't think it's to check out the tourist attractions."

"Aglaya?" Kai sounds plaintive. She's not the only one who's been forgetting to pass around complete information, but I've been busy, she's been busy, there have been other things to concentrate on.

"Vapulan Impudite, used to work for Lightning, long story. I should've told you she was around."

"That does explain why I pegged her as a Mercurian," Kai says. "But if she's all Vapulan, why would she give you forewarning about Hari showing up? And I take it this is a bad thing? I know he's the one who--"

"Yes, it's a bad thing. This is an immensely bad thing. When I left, he was shooting for his second distinction, and last I knew he had about three Forces on me. He's bound to have backup, isn't the sort to do the dirty work himself. Zif--"

"I'm looking into matters." Her PDA is out and scribbled on. "Kai, did Aglaya say anything about how soon Hari would arrive?"

"I don't think so. She said it wasn't urgent, but that was this morning. I don't know what her definition of urgent would be. Or why she'd be telling us about this in the first place."

"She's a demon," I say. "And a Vapulan on top of that. Sanity and straightforward thinking aren't necessary. She held a gun in my face to talk to me, yesterday, and I wasn't in enough danger through the conversation to even alert Zif."

"Weird. But that's demons for you." Kai spins a set of keys around on one finger. "Now I'm sort of wishing I hadn't called Judgment to work out a meeting with a triad."

Zif pauses. "And what did they say?"

"That it was about time I got in contact with them again, should've done so sooner, and set up a meeting for tonight. In about half an hour." She sighs. "I probably ought to cancel. They're going to be annoyed, and right to be so. It's been _months_ since I answered their questions."

"No. Go ahead with the meeting." Zif puts away her PDA, and pulls out her phone. "We may want a triad of Judgment nearby. Where are you meeting them?"

"The coffee shop where we met up."

"Not far from here. Return if you hear any disturbance. Knowing Judgment, they're unlikely to sit around waiting if you do." Zif begins dialing, some number not stored on her phone. "This may not be a problem for days, weeks, or ever, but let's not take chances while security is still so weak."

"I'm sorry I didn't get you the message sooner."

"Better than never. And walk, rather than taking your bike; you may need your Essence. Security code to get out is 75666. Knock, don't open the door, when you return. If it's urgent, use the window three to the left of the northern entrance; the boards are loose enough to pull off."

Kai nods, and dashes downstairs towards the basement exit.

Zif follows briskly, on her phone. "Zif. Received news of a possible Vapulan attack. No certainty on the time frame." She flips a switch as we reach the second floor, and three lights turn on; Nosha's been at work here, though I don't know where he is now. Likely somewhere with Al, working through the brat's emotions to pull out some remaining shred of decency. "Stand-by will do. Too much chance of this being a ploy to divert resources."

I could track Aglaya's distance, but I don't dare waste the Essence. She's not the one I'm worried about, though I'd dearly like to know what game she's playing. I find myself sketching out possibilities and contingency plans, as Zif continues her planning on the phone.

She hangs up, and puts on her counselor face. "I was under the impression Hari was a Habbalite. Why did Aglaya call him your brother?"

"Old joke." I try to wave it away, but she's having none of that. "We worked together on...most everything. For most of a century. When we weren't on the same project, we were on competing ones."

"Why?"

"I don't know. Never asked. Someone's idea of a joke, because we were made at the same time. Does it matter?" 

"Possibly." Zif frowns. "Don't use your last two notes of Essence, not under any circumstances. If this should become complicated, I want you safely back in Heaven. I don't suppose you have a hook on Hari?"

"No, or I'd have used it long ago. We had an particular, ah, arrangement. He didn't resonate me, I didn't resonate him."

"I see." There's more meaning to those words than I'm getting from them. I'll have to ask her about that later. "Do you have any plans to pursue old grudges?"

"No. I'm not a match for him anymore, and I don't know what equipment he might bring. I'll stay away."

"Good." She leaves, presumably to check on our defenses again, and I...wait there. Consider. It would be foolish of me to be swayed by old rivalries, not when I'm well out of that entire organization. I won't do anything of the sort.

Probably won't.


	15. Intermission: Tartarus. September, 1776.

Hari was the oldest of the class. No, he corrected himself, not the oldest, but the one with the most Forces; all the others were large demonlings nearly ready to fledge, or seven-Force demons barely to grips with their new abilities. He wasn't sure if he ought to feel superior for having nine Forces already, or ashamed to be stuck in a classroom full of weak demons. Hari hunched over the notebook on his desk, sending surreptitious glances at those around him, and chose to be proud. They were nothing but sniveling weak demons, crawling their way up from slime to Servitor, while he was an angel of punishment, created by the Genius Archangel himself. No room for anything but pride.

There was one desk empty in the room, and the Djinn at the front of the class flipped dully through some book, occasionally glancing about at the assembled students. So everyone would have to wait until the late student arrived; Hari itched for class to begin, and made a point of watching the door. He would know who had come late, remember that this demon was unreliable. Shifty. Not to be counted on.

Minutes dragged on unbearably, a terribly large portion of his life as each stretched out. Hari reached out with his resonance, tested it on the little Shedite to his left, the gremlin in front of him. They responded with quiet adoration, eager looks when the Djinn was turned away. He smiled benevolently back at them. Some day he would have Servitors of his own, and they would love and fear him the way all did the Genius Archangel.

The door opened. A Lilim stepped up to the doorway, glanced about the room, and then made his way to the remaining desk.

"You're late," said the Djinn, shutting her book.

"I'm sorry." The Lilim folded his hands neatly on top of the desk. "I got lost on the way here. The map I received seems to be out of date, or otherwise inaccurate. Is there someone in charge of such things who I ought to notify?"

The Djinn ignored the question, and raised herself to her hind legs, propping broad front paws of multi-jointed fingers across the desk. "We will begin with elementary mathematics. We shall proceed from there to physics, chemistry, and other simple sciences. I expect all of you to perform perfectly. These things are quite simple, and anyone who cannot perform to expectations will not be suited to a career in--" She paused, and shook her head. "Class will begin shortly. Don't go anywhere." And then the Djinn loped out of the room, tail lashing behind her.

The classroom promptly dissolved into whispered comments among the students. "I wonder what sort of message she got," said the Shedite, oozing a little closer to Hari. He began to regret resonating the thing. "It must be important."

"Only more important than we are," said the Lilim. He pulled out a pen, and wrote in the notebook on his desk.

"What are you writing?" Hari asked, leaning over to catch a glimpse. Lilim were made with nine Forces, so this one must be roughly his equal in power, if of course nowhere near his match. "Class hasn't even started."

"Questions I want to ask," said the Lilim. "There are all sorts of things that don't make sense. We are here to learn, aren't we?"

Hari read down the list of questions. _Who's in charge of keeping the maps up to date? How long will the classes take? What's the most important area of science to specialize in? Where can one find a Djinn of Lust?_ "Why do you want to find a Djinn of Lust?"

"The teacher needs one." The Lilim frowned. "Or wants one. I'm not sure what the difference is. Mother gave little instruction in this area. I will have to ask our Archangel." He turned to look at Hari. "People want strange things. I don't think I'll be able to help most of them."

"Get out of my _head_ ," Hari snapped, and threw out a wave of melancholy at the Lilim, to make him turn away.

"Don't do that," said the Lilim. No more effect than that. Hari remembered that this demon wasn't so weak as the others in the class. "What's wrong with knowing what people need? The whole point of needing something is that you want to get it. I can't help anyone get what they want until I know what that is."

"I don't want anyone looking inside my mind," said Hari. His hands were trembling, and he wanted to go find needles and thread, ink and iron, a way to mark himself until he was strong enough to not let anyone see anything inside of him.

"If you won't resonate me, I won't resonate you," said the Lilim. "Deal?"

"Deal," Hari agreed, none too happily, but no Geas settled around him to seal the issue. So it was only an informal agreement; he could abide by that until it ceased to be convenient. "It's stupid to tell people what they want. Most of them don't want to hear it, or don't want to know that _you_ know. How old are you?"

The Lilim looked up to the front of the classroom, where the clock ticked solidly around its circle. "About seven hours. How old are you?"

Hari did not wish to admit he was exactly that old. "It doesn't matter. Look, you can't go around telling people things and asking questions. That's not how it _works_. You shut up and you listen to what people tell you, and later when you're more powerful, then you can tell people things. But not yet."

The Lilim copied down what he'd said, in neat handwriting across the paper. "I thought science was about asking questions."

"Look--what's your name?"

"Maharang. What's yours?"

"Hari. Look, Maharang," said the Habbalite, settling comfortably into the role of the older and wiser giver of knowledge, "maybe you get to ask questions later in science, but right now isn't the time for it. You keep quiet, you listen to what the teachers say, that's it."

"But... I want to learn things myself." The Lilim sounded almost plaintive. "Isn't this about--"

"It's about doing God's will," Hari said sharply, and gave Maharang his best glare. "We discover the secrets of the universe and turn them into technology. We give knowledge to those humans down below, and the strong ones will know how to use it well, and the weak ones will take each other out using it poorly. That's the will of God. That's what we're doing. If the Genius Archangel has set us here to learn, that's our part in God's will right now, which means you don't get to argue, or ask questions, or do anything but sit still and listen. Understand?"

"That's what he said." The Lilim spun the pen around in his hands uncertainly. "That it's all part of God's plan. I don't entirely understand."

"That's because you're just a demon, not an angel." Hari snatched the pen out of the Lilim's hands, and set it down on the desk. "So stop fidgeting, and stop asking questions. That'll only get you into trouble."

"I see." Maharang folded his hands neatly. "Thank you for telling me."

"Listen to me, and maybe you'll even get somewhere." Hari was gratified to see that several of the demons and gremlins around them had been listening in, as shown by the way so many heads turned suddenly back to staring at the front of the classroom when he settled down in his chair. 

"You're so smart," said the Shedite beside him, from several mouths at once. It slurmed over towards him from its desk. "Could you give me advice too?"

Hari edged away from it, and tried to remember how long this sort of adoration would last. No one had told him specifically, and he'd never tried before. "Maybe after class," he said. And hoped that this session of class would take a very long time.


	16. Intermission: Arizona. 1982.

"Don't drop that!"

Jack noted the urgent tone in Kai's voice, and rescued the vase from the Elohite who was juggling it. "It doesn't match your decor," he said, passing the misshapen little thing back to Kai. "Really, we'd be doing you a favor if it broke."

"It was a gift from a student," Kai said, and put the vase into the cupboard that had been marked with a hasty _Don't Touch. No, Really. I Mean It_ sign done in red crayon on the back of a delivery menu. "If you want to break something, try the plaque over there. I got it instead of a raise last year. Not that I needed a raise, but you'd think they could have made the plaque attractive."

"It wouldn't be the same," said the Elohite, but she did pick up the gaudy little award and eye it thoughtfully.

The Cherub, her attuned tagging along behind, returned from the bedroom. "I hate to tell you this, but the springs on your bed don't work very well. What have you been _doing_ in there?"

"Probably not what you were planning on doing in there," Jack said, and shut the bedroom door behind the two of them, with a quick shove to get the human out of the way. He leaned back against the door, and shrugged apologetically at Kai. "Sorry to drop everyone in on you like this all of a sudden, but--"

"You needed a place to stay, right." Kai managed a smile, though it seemed a bit strained around the edges. "Don't worry about it. I could use the company. Though I hadn't really expected so _much_ company."

"Originally we were traveling in two groups," said the Seraph, looking up from where he'd been unpacking lumps of clay from his bag. "But we ran into each other when we both tried to steal items from the same infernal Tether at the same time, and we all ended up running in approximately the same direction when the alarms sounded. We won't be here long."

Kai grabbed Jack, and pulled him aside. "How _long_ were you planning on staying here? And if you say three days, let me remind you that three days is a _very_ long time to have..." He paused, and counted. "...six people in an apartment this size."

"Well," said Jack, "no more than three days, for sure." He pulled the Ofanite in for a hug. "Relax, Kai. We won't break anything too important. We just need to lay low until we're sure no one's on our trail. You keep heading to work like usual, and you'll barely notice us."

"Not true," said the Seraph, now in the kitchen. He leaned out the doorway. "Kai, are there any pots in here that you would be upset about losing?"

"Not especially, but please don't set anything on fire. The landlord's already annoyed about when I did that last week, and it's going to take at least a month for her to--" Kai twitched as banging began on the door. "Oh, that's going to be her."

"I'll handle this," said the Seraph, and when he opened the door his voice was full of charm. "Oh, you must be the landlord!"

Jack had only seen the woman once or twice before, when breezing through for a visit. He wasn't more impressed than he had been before, reading her life as much from the way she stood in the doorway as from what the Symphony told him. Petty and self-righteous, a one-track mind and a one-track life that hadn't swerved out of propriety or expectation in sixty years. What sort of destiny had she missed out on, doing nothing but what was expected of her? He couldn't imagine any destiny that would fit a life like that.

"There have been complaints," said the woman, in a way that meant she was the first one to complain. "About noise, and large gatherings." She tried to peer further into the room, but the Seraph neatly moved to intercept her vision.

"I apologize for that, ma'am. We're staying over for a few days, but our intent wasn't to wake you up. We'll try to keep things a bit quieter now. Won't we?" he added, in a voice that dared anyone in the room to tell the Seraph he was telling an untruth.

"It's a week night," said the woman, her anger melting away under the force of good cheer and sincere apologies.

"So it is! And too much noise could keep people up." The Seraph gently ushered her out the door. "Thank you for the reminder. Have a good night!" He shut the door, and grinned at the rest of them. "Now, if you can manage to wreak havoc a little bit more quietly..."

"This doesn't count as wreaking havoc," said the Cherub. "It's not even mayhem. We're barely even causing a public disturbance."

"Wouldn't even call it a private disturbance," said her attuned, and collapsed onto the couch. "Anyone know where the remote went?"

"Don't have one," said Kai. "I loaned it to a Sparky and last I heard it was part of his security system. Or maybe his car stereo, I don't remember which. It's not like it takes that many steps to reach the television and change the channels."

The attuned peered up at Kai. "Thanks for letting us crash here, man. Um. Woman." He looked plaintively to the Cherub. "Could someone give me a hint, here?"

"According to the driver's license, male," said the Elohite, and passed Kai's wallet back to him. "Hey, do you have any ice cream?"

"In the freezer. So long as you don't mind pistachio." Kai began meandering in an irregular pattern around furniture and people. "I finished off the chocolate yesterday, because chocolate shouldn't sit around waiting to get freezer burn. Not that chocolate is any more inherently holy than pistachio is, but I prefer it. Which my triad would say is a warning sign of becoming overly attached to the luxuries of the corporeal plane, but I like chocolate in Heaven, too, so I don't see how this should be a problem. I'll have to ask them about that in more detail the next time they show."

The Seraph leaned out of the kitchen. "Do you have any aluminum foil?"

Kai paused, mid-step. "What are you doing with my pots and aluminum foil?"

"Making keys, of course," said the Seraph.

"Top drawer, second from the left."

"Thanks." The Seraph cackled to himself, and turned on the stove.

"Wait a minute," said the Cherub, who'd settled down next to her attuned on the couch. "You're under investigation by a triad?"

"Not so much under investigation as they come to check on me from time to time," Kai said. Jack caught the Ofanite in a passing orbit, and pulled him over to sit on the floor between stacks of books. Comfortable little bundle of energy resting against him, though it wouldn't last for long. "Because of my Boss being out and about, so someone needs to make sure we're keeping to our jobs. I don't mind it. They're pretty neat guys. A little twitchy about accepting food, for some reason. What is it with Judgment and food? I can understand them getting concerned about sex or television or, I don't know, parking tickets, but I can't see anything wrong with a pint of ice cream now and then."

"How often do they stop by?" asked the Elohite, catching the mugs she'd been juggling one by one without cracking any against each other.

"Once a week. Fridays, around three or four in the afternoon, depending on whether they're running behind or not."

The Windies paused, and exchanged a series of significant looks over Kai's head.

"Two days," said Jack. "We're not staying any longer than two days." Kai was already shifting restlessly in his grip, but the Ofanite would stay there a few minutes longer. And would no doubt wave them away cheerfully when they finally blew out of town.

"Two days I can live with," said Kai. "Try not to set anything important, large, or not belonging to me on fire while I'm at work tomorrow, okay?"

The Elohite applied a lighter thoughtfully to the corner of the plaque. "I think we can work with that."


	17. In Which Responsibilities Are Defined

I finish off my mocha and get straight coffee to follow it. I shouldn't be so nervous about meeting with a triad, because I've never had any problems with them before. It makes perfect sense that while my Boss is busy elsewhere, he'd need someone to check up on all his kids, make sure we're keeping to what we ought to be doing. He's not the sort to slap us with a dissonance condition to keep us in line, so all the more reason for them to watch out for us. I appreciate knowing there's someone out who's sure to tell me if I'm screwing up, when no one else is around to see.

Of course, my triad used to come by once a week while I was working as a ballet instructor, and there's not that much trouble I _could_ get in, not in that job. Only time I saw excitement was when Jack swept into town, or I noticed demons sniffing around. Adala would ask the standard set of questions, throw in one or two unusual ones to keep me on my toes, and Nomikos and Dedan would wait until it was over. Then it was time for a bit of chatter about what I'd been doing lately, and they'd be off to their next assignment. Friendly, comfortable, familiar. This time I'm going to have to explain a sorcerer and two ethereals, a call from my Boss, and that whole incident with Al that prompted me to call Judgment. Not to mention talking to strangers instead of old friends; never did get the whole story on why my triad was broken up, but I got the impression I won't seeing those three in an official way again.

I'd buy them coffee, but some Judges get all huffy about indulging in corporeal luxuries like that. I tried explaining how caffeine made things holy once, but Adala asked me to stop on account of a headache, so that's unlikely to fly with the next triad. Never have grasped what they think is wrong with appreciating the world my Boss helped make. It's not like they get on Destiny's case about appreciating literature, so why be so upset that Creation can appreciate food and sex?

I'm definitely stressed if I'm forming responses to accusations nobody's made at me yet.

When the triad walks in, I'm up getting a refill on my coffee. The Cherub's one that I've met before, tagging along behind my old triad to observe them in action some forty or fifty years back. She never said much at the time, only sat on my couch and listened while the senior members of the triad did the talking. They wait for me to finish filling the cup, then follow me over to the side room I've adopted. Not much business in here tonight; tomorrow must be a weekday.

The tall man must be the Seraph; his vessel reminds me a little of Mannie's, all straight lines and sharp angles. I know a Seraph of Creation who prefers the short and chubby style, but Judgment doesn't deviate far from the classics. You'd think that having three people walking around like they own the place, divided into tall-thin, stocky, and other, would be something of a security risk, but since that hasn't stopped them, I can only assume they take that into consideration. Can't identify the third member by body type, though he doesn't move quite right to be an Ofanite. Perfectly ordinary-average appearance, aside from a slight bend to his nose, like it was broken and set wrong once. Could be a Kyriotate, which would be interesting; I've never run into a Kyrio Judge doing triad duty. If so, I'll have to ask how they handle hosts. Do they find someone willing to be out of his body for days of the circuit, pick up locals, or something else entirely?

I close the door; the owner of this place works the counter herself some nights, and said she didn't mind if I took over the room for a few hours. As she put it, at least I'm not so noisy as the study groups. "Evening. Anyone want coffee?"

"Corporeal beverages are unnecessary," says the Cherub. She waits until the other members of her triad have sat down to take a seat herself. All of them across from me, and isn't this going to be fun. "I notice you've already gone through several."

"By the blessed power of coffee, it's all made holy. Besides, it would be impolite for me to take up an entire room here without buying a few drinks. This place is so un-corporate it's barely scraping by." If the community center gets turned into any sort of proper meeting area again, museum or research lab or what have you, this will be the nearest place to grab caffeine. I hope that'll work out; they brew a mean special blend, here.

The Seraph steeples his fingers. Could do some great piano-work with fingers like that. "Kai, Ofanite of Creation. By the power of Judgment, we require your cooperation with our inquiry. I am Themistokles, Seraph of Judgment. Shamira, Cherub of Judgment. Galen, Elohite of Judgment. Do you have any questions before we begin?"

"Not especially. Glad you could make it so soon." A moment of surprise flickers across the Seraph's face, and why do Judges get confused when I tell them I'm happy to see them? Maybe I keep running into ones that have been spending time trying to interrogate War Servitors. They are a stiff lot, took Dedan months to unbend enough that I felt comfortable hugging him, but there needs to be solid, unbending types to give boundaries to the rest of us. The harp's frame, so that all the vibrating strings can be kept in tension.

"Have you acquired any dissonance or Discord since you last met with a triad of Judgment?"

"Nope." I know the basic questions my triad always asked as well as the notes to the William Tell Overture on the piccolo. I ought to pick up another one of those in the near future, stop by a pawn shop and find one waiting for someone to bring it back to life. Instruments shouldn't have to wait too long between being played. "Never had any Discord, haven't been consorting with demons unless you count the part where I hit them until they stop moving, and much as I like my Boss's world, I'm not about to run off from Heaven to have fun in it. He wouldn't approve. No one I've talked to lately has been, to the best of my knowledge, Outcast." I pause, and remember Aglaya. "Though I did end up talking to one demon today who I believed at the time to be an angel. I've already reported that to the Cherub who's temporarily in charge of the new Tether, and they have that under control. Wait, ended up talking to two demons, but the Djinn ended up vessel-dead, so that doesn't count, I think."

Themistokles, who apparently chooses to indulge the Seraph habit of having a long name and not using any nicknames to make addressing him any faster, can't imagine that's useful in the middle of a fight, scribbles out something in his notebook. "Please do not anticipate our questions."

"Okay." I drink coffee to cover my frown. I'm only trying to be helpful.

"According to our files, you've spent the last several month traveling with several Servitors of Janus. However, we have no record of you moving into his service. How do you explain this?"

"The Game toasted my last Role, and vessel. Okay, so technically the angel rescue squad did in the vessel, but that was to get me away from the Game, so I figure that counts as the fault of Hell. By the time I got back to Earth, I couldn't do much about that, and I didn't have a new assignment, not once the job I did for Lightning was over. So I figured Jack could always use a hand, and I wasn't about to just drop Sharon without anyone she knew to help out."

"Those would be the Mercurian of the Wind, and the human who you recruited?"

"Right. I mean, recruitment isn't quite the right word for it, she shot a demon I was fighting with, and saw enough that I pretty much had to explain things at that point. But she's doing great with the Windies."

"Why not return to Heaven, rather than continue on Earth?" This from the Elohite. Perfectly neutral face. I like Nosha better.

"What good would that do? Can't use most of the skills my Boss gave me back in Heaven. No demons to smack, and not so much with the need for ballet instructors there." And the empty Halls of Creation terrified me, space and silence where there used to be crowds and music. "Being able to heal fast or kill someone with a paperclip isn't much use there. Not that I've ever killed someone with a paperclip, but I did take out some eyes, once."

More notes taken. Not the chattiest triad I've ever dealt with. "Are the Servitors of the Wind you were traveling with still in this area?"

"Nah, they dropped me off and moved on. It's been way over three days already. And, I mean, unstable Tether, Windies. Not the greatest combination out there, especially when Nip can't avoid disturbance to save her life. There was this one incident with a room full of vampires--"

"Please concentrate on the actual questions," says the Seraph. "Why did you choose to remain here?"

"Because the Boss gave me the job." Themistokles freezes mid-note. "I'll admit I was starting to wonder if it was a hint on his part, not giving me any new instructions. I'd been planning on heading back to where I used to work right after schools let out, see if I could pick up a related job during the summer rush and move back to where I used to be."

"Eli contacted you directly?" The Elohite this time. Perfectly neutral voice. I guess Judges are supposed to be unbiased, so neutral works, but it's such a flat thing to do with a voice. Is that actually objectively the most useful approach? "By what method?"

"Called. I have a phone the Sparkies gave me, so I can stay in touch with Mannie."

"The Bright Lilim," supplies the Elohite, and the Seraph looks unhappy. I'm not sure what they'd be worried about; I'm a Servitor, my Archangel is supposed to give me jobs to do. Maybe it's because I'm running around with LightningTech, without being a Sparky myself. I probably shouldn't bring up the motorcycle unless they ask.

"Kai, what did Eli say to you? Precisely." The Seraph flips to another page in his notebook. "Or as best you can remember it."

"Um." All the marvelous warmth of hearing that voice, that I remember clearly, but not so much the exact words. "He asked how I was doing. And I said fine, that I was planning on going back to my old job soon. But he told me not to worry about it, and that he had a new job for me. That a new Tether was forming and I should," I search for the phrase as best I can remember it, "watch out for it and make sure it didn't break up before it could be stabilized. And that it wasn't his."

"That was everything?" Galen again, while the Seraph takes notes. The Cherub hasn't said a word since she sat down.

"Asked if I could manage, and I said I'd do my best. So he told me to keep up the good work. And that was it, yes."

"Everything?" The Seraph's tone borders on accusatory.

"Um. I did hit call-back." I take another sip of my coffee. Not as hot as I like it anymore. "Which I shouldn't have, because if the Boss had more to say to me, he would have said it while he was on the line. Didn't work anyway. So. I shouldn't have done that."

"Because you miss him," says Galen. Ever neutral tones. A voice like that, he ought to learn to sing, it's a nice tenor if he'd use it properly.

"Yeah." I finish the coffee. Too bad they'd get annoyed if I went and got another refill. "I know he's doing important work. He wouldn't leave like this otherwise. And it's selfish of me to want him around and back in Heaven just to make _me_ feel better. Doesn't stop me from wanting it, sometimes. Most times." I push the cup away, and begin folding a napkin into a frog. It won't be able to hop with paper this soft. "I appreciate that you watch out for us. If my Boss had to leave us for this long, can't think of anyone better than Judgment for him to ask to keep us in line. Different enough viewpoints that you can see us from the outside, where closer Words might not notice if we were slipping." The Seraph is frowning again. "I'm sorry. I'll try to stick to the questions you ask. My head's on a little crooked right now. It's been a long day."

"Why would Eli send you to protect a Tether not his own?" Still the Elohite, and I expected another remark from the Seraph.

"I don't know. Because he happened across it and it serves the cause of Heaven?" If the building used to be a Tether of Creation... I wonder if the Boss visits the sites of his dead Tethers, to watch for any sign of new life. Or if it's more like visiting the grave of someone dead and gone. Students of mine dead in one way or another, and I have no way of tracing where they've gone. Not many, but time will bring down more. Maybe it isn't so bad to leave the job I was in, compared to watching people I love reach the inevitable human end, whether they've reached their destinies or not. "If he thought I needed to know why, he would have told me."

"Do you consider the assignment you were given to be completed?" Finally Themistokles again, and his voice doesn't have those irritating bland tones.

"Yes." He can't ask for an answer more concise than that unless I start nodding and shaking my head.

"What do you intend to do next?"

"Stick around the Tether so long as Mannie is there. Run errands for them and that sort of thing." Find a time to drag my ever-worried Bright off into a private room and reassure him that we're both okay. "After that... I don't know. If I don't hear anything more from my Boss, probably pick up with the Windies again the next time they're through. Might do a few jobs for Lightning again, if they have anything in mind and it doesn't involve playing secretary again. I'm not good with the office work. Or going undercover near demons, for that matter. I always end up wanting to tell them what they're doing _wrong_. Um. Sorry. Not so good with the stopping talking either." I shut up to let them ask their questions. Two frogs down, and I'm running out of napkins. I fold the third napkin into smaller squares to make more out of it. Maybe a little pack of cranes. I've always liked folding cranes, they're quick to make and symbolic.

The three of them are silent for a moment, giving each other the little looks and gestures that make up a private conversation I can't follow. Boring. 

"What do you think I ought to do next?"

Three pairs of eyes turn to me, two of the pairs startled. "Why do you ask?" says the Seraph.

"Same reason why I gave Judgment a call in the first place. Because I can't be sure." Two little cranes flanking the frogs. "I do what I think my Boss would approve of, try to help people who need the help, and if I get a job, I do that the best I can. But right now I don't have a job, I don't have any sort of supervisor to check in with, and there's no one out there telling me what I'm supposed to be doing next, when I'm not sure. I like speed, but sometimes it feels more like freefall." Cranes in the front and back of the frogs. "So I appreciate boundaries. Or at least a few hints. What do you think I should do?"

Another brief, silent consultation. "We believe you ought to enter the service of another Superior. There are many who would be willing to take you." Galen lets his voice sound more pleasant, sympathetic. "You would thus be given appropriate assignments to suit your abilities, and a system of responsibility to prevent you from straying. Lightning and the Wind seem most suited to your recent activities."

"People keep saying that." Jack wants me to ride with the Windies, tells me so every time I help them pull off a caper. Mannie's said little about it, but I can tell he'd rather have me working for his Boss, somewhere he'd consider safe. And even the Archangel of Lightning, standing before me, put out his hand and offered to be there--

I've only once cried on a Judge, and there were extenuating circumstances. I blink several times, and set the last crane down on the table. Not that Galen won't know just what I'm feeling, but I can cling to a semblance of propriety. Judges like propriety. "If the Boss wanted me working for someone else, he'd tell me. Or them, and let them tell me about the change. Can't quit just because things get hard. He wouldn't approve."

"There's wisdom in heeding the advice of others who may know more than you," says the Elohite. Galen's gone all gentle on me, which is enough of a relief I can't mind the blatant manipulation.

"True enough. I did stop trying to make coffee. But I don't think this is the same." I was glad to see them here, and now I'd like to see them go. Let me run circles through the city for a few hours, listening for something I can track down and fix. I wonder if I didn't so much want to see Judgment again as want my old triad back, but that's not happening. "Is there anything else you wanted to know?" Please don't ask about ethereals or sorcerers, please don't ask about ethereals or sorcerers...

"Do you expect to be in a situation where you might acquire dissonance in the near future?" Themistokles asks. An easy question, at least.

"Nope. Don't expect to stop moving any time soon." My cranes dance around the frogs, one bird to each finger.

They stand up all at once, another one of those signals I can't interpret. "Contact us before moving on to anywhere else," says the Seraph, and there's no polite request to this particular command. "If Eli should call you again, contact us _immediately_. Is this clear?"

"Perfectly. Though for immediately, there's only so much I can do; my phone doesn't ring through to anywhere in Judgment, so I usually call Maharang and asking it to deliver a message. Does Judgment even use phones in Heaven?"

I don't get an answer to this question.

I wait a polite amount of time for them to see themselves out, and then head back to the counter for another coffee refill. The owner pours me the cup, and leans forward over the counter. "So, what was all that about? Group like that doesn't fit in around here. You'd think they'd come to audit the place or something. Accountants?"

"Lawyers."

"Poor girl. For that, I'll spot you a cup of chai." She turns away to begin mixing powder and hot water before I can object. "So what did those bloodsuckers want?"

"Just to ask some questions. They're not bad people. Aggressive in pursuing the truth, maybe."

"Lawyers, pursuing the truth? Now I've heard everything. Cookie?"

The streets are quiet on the way back, both from ordinary and Symphonic noise. I nearly try to open the basement door before remembering what Zif said, and so I knock instead and wait for them to answer. Still crumbs left to lick off my fingers. When the door clicks open in front of me, there's no one on the other side. They _have_ been busy today.

I trace voices upstairs until I hit the second floor. Down the hallway and around the corner, two people speaking.

"I just wanted to apologize," says Al. Petulant whine to his voice. We need to sic an Elohite on him, preferably someone with training in psych. This isn't an area my classes on dealing with children covered.

"I'd rather you not." Mannie's using his more clipped tones.

"Why not?"

"You see this screwdriver? If it went through your right eye, you'd be unlikely to survive, and then I'd have all manner of people lecturing me. As this would delay the work I'm doing, I'd rather avoid that situation."

That's the cheerful Bright Lilim that I know and love. I wait to see who comes stalking away first.

Looks like Al backed down before Mannie did. I'm reasonably sure Mannie wouldn't have stabbed the kid, but then he does occasionally fall into bad habits. I'm sure Zif and Nosha are working on that; doesn't mean I'd trust him to _always_ do the right thing. I can't always count on myself to do the right thing, and I've had lots more practice.

"Hey," Al says. He stares at the floor. Sirius, trotting along behind, rolls his eyes at me as if to say, look what I have to put up with. "I'm. Um."

"We talked about it already, Al." I may be giving him an easier out than he deserves, but I'm not in the mood to go over all that again. "You had any sleep since yesterday?"

"Not yet. I'll. Uh. Go to bed." And he blushes, dashes off towards his room with speed that would do a Windy proud.

Mannie's glare only lasts for a fraction of a second, when I round the corner. "How did the inquisition go?"

"Pretty well. Triads always seem to get twitchy their first time talking to someone." I keep my hands behind my back, to avoid the temptation to poke at all the wiring and shiny bits of electronics festooning each window down this hallway.

"I believe that's just with you." Mannie isn't the sort to pause in his work while talking with me, and there's an entertaining twist to following him down to the next window instead of him following me around. "Amets and Zif are downstairs, speaking with the first Seneschal. She arrived while you were out. Nosha has been working on setting up proper monitoring systems."

"Oh? Who'd the place get?" Seneschals tend to be an odd bunch, so tied to a single place. I can't imagine how any Ofanite could handle it, except maybe in a Tether wide enough to give them space to roam. But then, I don't understand the entire concept of Ofanim of Stone either, so it might be that I have a limited appreciation for my own Choir.

"Cherub of Lightning. Her name is Orli. I will admit some, ah, surprise at how she interacts with Zif."

"Sparks flying?"

"And not in the positive sense. You would think two Cherubim would be more sociable." Mannie frowns, making a minute adjustment to some piece of wire. "I seldom dealt well with other Lilim, so it might not be such a surprise as I make it out to be. She'll want to see you."

"Sure thing. And how are you holding up?"

"I should not be. Ah. Enjoying myself, quite this much. This task is simple and repetitive, and most of these defenses are likely to be replaced in a few weeks once long-term plans have been made." Mannie tightens a screw with the pointy screwdriver of doom he mentioned earlier. "I prefer research and experimentation."

"But there's something to be said for feeling useful?" I grin. "Maybe a little dim, but I know how that goes. Have fun. And please don't stab Al. No matter how much you think he deserves it."

"As you wish."

I don't hear any shouting, so I suspect Mannie's exaggerated about the hostility between Zif and the new Seneschal. I track them down in a room just off the main hall, Amets having wandered somewhere else. "Zif? Mannie said I should drop by. Anything I can help with?"

I can't read anything but the usual neutral-cool on Zif's face. "Kai, this is Orli, Cherub of Lightning. She's our Seneschal for this Tether. Until Dreams appoints a Seneschal of their own, you may consider her to have complete authority over this place."

The second Cherub manages to do both tall and matronly in one vessel, or maybe closer to grandmotherly with the artistic gray streaks in her hair. "Ofanite of Creation," she says, as if she's confirming it to herself. "I read the reports on how you assisted here earlier. What's your current assignment?"

"Don't really have a proper assignment. I'm hanging around to help with whatever needs helping until my Boss calls or there's some other reason for me to go elsewhere. What do you need me to do?"

"You've worked with Lightning before, have you not?"

"Done some work here and there for Sparkies, sure."

"I would prefer that you not use that term, child. It trivializes our work."

"It's nothing more than a common nickname among the younger generations," Zif says evenly, and in such a _perfectly_ casual tone that I begin to see what Mannie meant.

"I can use 'Servitors of Lightning' if you want, but it takes up a lot more syllables." I search my pockets for anything of interest and pace out the room. "But, yes, I did a few favors for Spa--for Lightning back in my last Role, and then a quick job recently. Why do you ask?"

"Only double-checking the information I've been given. You can take orders?" I swear, Zif rolls her eyes at this.

"Don't see why not. I'm not any Swordie, but if you point me in the direction you want me to go--"

"Quite. In that case, I have an address I want you to observe. Not for too long at a time, or too obviously. Only observation, no approach, is that clear?"

I'm not about to raise my preference to stick around here near Mannie in front of this one. "Clear as quartz. Who am I watching?"

"Servitors of Nightmares. They may take an interest in this Tether, because of its connection to Dreams. If they become aware of it. We know of at least two, Djinn and Lilim, and there may be others. By observing but not approaching them, we may gain better means of defense against them."

"Um. I don't suppose the Djinn was, say, half a foot taller than me, brown hair, face like he walked into a wall, low on the sense of self-preservation?"

Orli touches fingertips to her forehead. "You encountered him already?"

"Encountered is one way to describe it, yeah. I think Nosha was going to put it in one of his reports." The Seneschal's expression veers closer to a grandmother who has just seen one of her grandchildren misbehave. "Um. Maybe they won't notice that he hasn't come back yet?"

"I have not reached this age through wishing that the enemy be stupid, child." Orli hands me a bit of paper. "There's little to be done about it now. Be more cautious than you would otherwise. Do you know the Celestial Song of Tongues?"

"No, but I have a cell phone." I pull out my now second-favorite piece of LightningTech. "What's your number?"

"I'll arrange for communication methods," Zif says, and escorts me out of the room. "You don't need to worry about her criticism," she adds, once we're further out of the way. "She's merely concerned for the health of this strange Tether."

"And wasn't expecting to get saddled with an Ofanite of Creation."

"Mm. You're not a burden, Kai. Only not the sort of angel she's accustomed to directing." She enters a new set of numbers into my phone. "Please be careful."

"I know, I know. Mannie gets unreasonable every time I get into a little more trouble than I can handle."

"You may have heard the saying, fools rush in where angels fear to tread." Zif gives my phone back. "I haven't yet seen a place where you fear to tread. A little less rushing might be advisable."

"Can't stop rushing, Zif. It's what I do." I grin, and punch in the code at the basement door. "But I'll try not to do anything rash unless it seems necessary, and not just a good idea."

"How reassuring that isn't." She pulls the door open for me, and passes me a small notebook, and a pen. "Orli is something of a traditionalist. She'll expect a report. You might want to take notes."

I stuff both away in my jeans pockets. "More Mannie's department than mine, but I'll do my best."

"Of course."


	18. In Which We Gain Company

I am not talented at waiting for the unknown.

A week since the damned little Impudite starting spreading her messages, and no whisper of Technology at our doors. Zif and Orli manage serenity when not in close contact, and aside from reworking details of the devices the other installed, have kept the peace. Nosha has the sense to stay out of their way, adding its improvements quietly in the background. Amets follows the Dreams Seneschal around like an eager puppy until he's sent outdoors to spend time with the local children. The Mercurian Blandine chose to send is so sweet I'd think her a Servitor of Flowers, and has blessedly left security arrangements entirely to us Sparkies. Kai's been kept busy with errands and observation, leaving us little time to talk. I shouldn't be surprised; Earth duty isn't a vacation.

My phone rings as I'm working up my weekly report. Not Kai by the caller ID, but someone from upstairs. "Hello?"

"Mannie! I tracked down the Creationer who holds the deed."

I kick my feet off the desk and stand up. "That's excellent news, Maharang. Have you told Zif?"

"Sent her an email, yup yup. I wish I could be down there with all of you. I've only been to Earth the once, when I wasn't supposed to. Has anything exciting happened?"

"Not especially." I used to appreciate peace and quiet, a chance to work on my projects without interruption. This is less peace and quiet and more the calm before the storm; I've begun wishing the storm would hit so that we can get it over with. The longer Hari has to plan before he charges in here, the more dangerous he'll be. "And you?"

"It was great! I got inquisited! I mean, they weren't proper Judges, only relievers, and it was because I was over where they play, except it's an awfully dull play in my opinion. But they asked me all sorts of questions! What's dissonance like? I've never had any."

"Unpleasant." All the Symphony strung with off-key chords, breaking down my vision until I can't see what people Need. "Have you tried that booth where they let you wear headphones that echo everything you say back to you a second afterwards?"

"Oo, yes. It was awful. All my words mixed up because I could hear myself saying them after I was trying to do a different part of the sentence. Dissonance feels like that? No wonder it's bad."

"About like that. What were you doing near the Council Spires?" I edit out a few graceless comments in my report about inter-Word politics, and send it off.

"I was going to ask them if I could install a better communications system there. They keep sending messages. On paper! Or by asking someone to deliver the words! It's inefficient. If they'll use recording crystals, why won't they put in an intercom system? But the relievers said it worked for them, so I guess that's okay. Still, if they gave every Judge a phone, that would make things so much better." The reliever swings between indignant and puzzled. "Do you know when you're going to be back in the office?"

"Not yet. Keeping yourself occupied?"

"Yup yup. Classes and research and games. I got the coffee cup warmer I made for you small enough that it doesn't take up the whole desk anymore, and Teresa says if I can't get it cup-sized she'll give me a few hints. But I think I can work it out myself. How's Kai?"

"Keeping busy. Annoyed that he's not allowed to beat anything up of late."

"Isn't Kai's current vessel female?"

"Ah. Right. She."

"Gender is weird. How do humans deal with having one on all the time, and no choice in which one they got?"

"Practice, I suppose. It's a little more complicated than that." All the panels in this room--more a large closet--that we converted into the security monitoring station glow reassuringly blue at me. Sooner or later the storm will break.

"So why did you end up picking male, when most Lilim choose female? The report about celestials and gender said, quote, Lilim, Impudites, and Mercurians are the most likely to identify strongly with a single gender." There's a clatter in the background. "Oops, sorry. But it didn't break!"

I choose peace of mind over more information and don't ask what Maharang managed to do even in gravity-optional Heaven. "I...suppose I imprinted, very early."

"Like the stuff in zoology about ducklings that will follow a dog around if it's the first thing they see?"

"Ah. Approximately. When I was first made, the world was...terrifying and strange. And my Mother seemed terribly cold and...unfair." I sit on the edge of the desk, hoping Maharang won't get any strange ideas from the story. "He was--Vapula was kind. Encouraging. Told me that I could do great things, working for him. I would have done anything for him."

Maharang hums quietly for a moment, the way it does when it's been presented with some strange piece of information its tiny mind can't quite grasp. "But he's a Demon Prince."

"Yes."

"They're not nice! They're awful!"

"Yes." I would feel more at ease explaining this in person, with charts and footnotes to back me up. "But they're also clever, and they can pretend to be nice if it suits them."

"That's not fair. The bad guys shouldn't be able to be sneaky too." Back to righteous indignation. Poor little reliever, discovering that the world downstairs doesn't work as it does in Heaven.

"If they played fair, they wouldn't be--" One of the blue lights flicks to green. Nothing worth an alarm, but sub-optimal power flow. "I need to go check on a security issue, Maharang. If you're confused, talk to an Elohite who isn't busy."

"Okay, I'll do that. Have fun!"

The light flips back to blue before I've finished tucking away my phone. One of the security cameras on the rooftop door, and there's enough distance between generator and that point that it might only be a power flicker. But it's either check up on the flash or ask Orli what she'd like me to do next, so upstairs it is.

Sirius lounges on the top of the stairs to the second floor. "Evening, Mannie. Something happening?"

"Probably not. A power flicker upstairs." I still don't trust this ethereal hound, but it's difficult to dislike someone who thoroughly agrees with me on several issues.

He gets to his feet. "Do you mind if I go with you?"

"You're not needed to fetch tools?" He doesn't provide the same comfort as another angel would, but I appreciate the company. This building is too large for so few people, especially when several are avoiding each other.

"He's taking a nap. Irregular sleeping hours of late, that can't be good for him." Sirius lets out a tiny apologetic woof. "And I regenerate Essence by guarding against danger to the one I serve. My motivations are not entirely selfless."

"I can't call that sort of Rite entirely selfish, either." The elevator works again, but would prove an unnecessary drain on the generator; we walk up to the sixth floor, stair by stair.

"We ethereals are a mixed bag, Mannie. More like the humans who dream us up than any of you celestials. I can't claim any particular holiness, but neither am I damned." Sirius pauses at the top of a staircase to scratch behind one ear. "My old master theorized that we gave up our destinies in exchange for not being given fates. But it's only a theory."

I hadn't previously considered theological debates among ethereals; my bargains and encounters with them have always tended towards the practica. "If you're curious, I'd recommend asking a Servitor of Destiny. They're more likely to know than anyone else. Though I'm afraid I don't know how they react to ethereals on Earth."

"There aren't many angels who wouldn't destroy my vessel for daring to walk this Earth. I don't intend to take any chances." The hound sighs. "I suspect I'll be vessel-killed sooner or later. Such things approach inevitability as angels converge. But I shall miss this place. Earth has such peculiar stability to it."

"Compared to the Marches, everywhere has a peculiar stability." We reach the door to the roof, and I begin checking the control panels. Everything seems to be in order. "How does the machine progress?"

"In a satisfactory manner, according to Al. Nosha tells me the scale being used will allow the entire replica to be built inside the room downstairs without altering the ceiling, which is some relief."

"Good." The sooner the brat finishes his toy model of that great machine, the sooner we can shuffle him off to a therapist. Somewhere else. "It all checks out. Must have been a minor power surge." I turn back downstairs.

And there's the tiniest click of the door behind me opening.

"Mannie!" Powerful arms wrap around me, and I squeak in an undignified manner. "Great to see you." Jack lets go of me, grinning wildly. "You have a _great_ security system here."

Not a single alarm going off. "How did you _possibly_ \--"

"Hey, don't thank me, I do it for free! Consider it a complimentary service of the Wind. I'll list all the flaws later. Most of them, anyway. Would you believe it took me an hour and a half to get that door open without setting anything off?"

I'm sure both Seneschals will be thrilled by a pack of Windies stopping in. "Why are you--"

"Later, later. Let's see, you've already met Sharon." The human waves to me from the other side of the door. "And that's Nip, Seraph of the Wind and best damn pickpocket I've ever met, accounting for age. Great potential. Nobody's going to mind if we crash here for a few days, right?"

The three of them pour down the stairs before I can get a sentence in edgewise. "Weird dog," says Sharon, as she passes. "Hey, is Kai around?"

"Out, right now. She'll be back." Sirius blinks up at me. I shrug, lock the door, and follow them downstairs. "Are you--"

"Hey, you wired all the windows! See, Nip, this is why I said we shouldn't try the windows. Doors are designed to let people in and out, so there's always a way through, even if it's hedged off and complicated. Windows, no such promise. Good principle to remember."

Sharon flashes me a sympathetic smile as the two Windies run down the hallway to exclaim over our security. "They do that," she says. "Jack will want to tell the story, but we ran into a little trouble we had trouble shaking. This is the nearest Tether we knew of. It's stabilized now, right? We've been careful about any disturbance since we hit city limits, just in case."

"Stabilized, yes. What _sort_ of trouble?"

"Um. Trouble?" She's no good at concealing guilty expressions yet. "I'll let Jack explain."

I follow the three of them, watching to make sure nothing is broken or obviously swiped. Not that I'd be able to tell if either of the two Windies were serious about causing havoc. "Sirius, please get...ah. The first Seneschal you run into." I would dearly like to know what's in the bulging satchel the Wind-Seraph carries. Once the ethereal spirit has loped away, I pull out my phone.

"Hello?"

"Kai? Your Windy friends just arrived. Please get back here and keep them from destroying anything important."

"They stopped by? Great! I'll be back as soon as I get through the checkout line. Who'd guess there'd be so many people in a hardware store half an hour before it closes?"

"Who, indeed." I don't like the way Nip opens doors to peer inside.

Sirius either found the Dreams Seneschal first, or chose to look specifically for her; I would believe either. Tikva steps in the path of the pack, and offers a gracious nod. "Welcome to this place. How may we help you?"

Jack stops short, and turns on a charming smile he used to pull on any leery human we encountered during that strange road trip. If I didn't know better, I'd think him more Impudite than Mercurian, sometimes. "We could use a place to crash for a night or three. You don't mind, right?"

"Certainly not," Tikva says. "So long as you're willing to speak with Orli and me about why you're here, and who might be pursuing you." She smiles at Nip. "Seraph? In that case, I'd like _you_ tell us this story."

"Why doesn't anybody want to hear me tell the stories?" Jack complains, but follows Tikva meekly enough. "I tell great stories."

"Because you get vague at the places where you don't want to let on that we messed up or did something the listener would get annoyed at," Sharon says. She walks with one of her arms looped in his.

I end up in Orli's office with both Seneschals, all three Windies, and Sirius listening at the door. "Explain," Orli says, drumming her fingers on the desk.

Jack and Nip exchange glances. "Well," says Jack, "it's fairly simple--"

"Not from you. The Seraph."

"Oh." It shouldn't please me as much as it does to see Jack wince at this command. "Fine, Nip, you tell the story."

Her vessel looks younger than any other in the room at the moment, a wild-eyed teenager in ragged clothing. Not the style I would expect on a Seraph, but the Wind endeavors to break out of patterns. Even so her vessel has a serpentine touch to how it moves. "I was distracting a receptionist with conversation," she says, "while Jack and Sharon were otherwise occupied. I received a Truth deeper than that human knew about the nature of her employers and the building." She drops her satchel on Orli's desk, scattering the papers neatly arranged there. "Naturally, we decided to rob the place."

"I thought they had insufficient security," says Jack, arms crossed. "Turns out I was wrong. Oops."

Orli picks up the satchel gingerly, the way she might an unstable piece of VapuTech. (But I repeat myself.) "What was the nature of this place?"

"Game Tether," says Nip. "We can't translate anything in those files; they're written in what appears to be Helltongue. They might be useful, or might not. We'd like to turn them over to you for analysis, in return for a few days' stay here."

"Out of the question." Orli shoves the bag back at Nip. "We are not a hiding place for Servitors of the Wind in over their heads. If you wish to ascend to Heaven, that much I can tolerate. But not drawing the Game down on this place."

"Um," says Sharon, and stares at the floor. "There's this bit that's more or less my fault--"

"It's not _your_ fault you got Djinned," says Jack. "But, yeah, that's the problem. Sharon's picked up a Stalker, and we can't count on outrunning them until that wears off."

"I didn't mean to--"

"Sharon! Still not your fault." Jack puts one arm around her. "We could drop the notes and run, and leave her here for protection, but that's still pulling the Game in your direction. Look, we wouldn't have come here, but the next nearest Tether we know of is for Judgment, and I don't have time to _start_ listing the problems involved in a bunch of us trying to hide out from the Game there. If you have a better idea, I'd love to hear it."

"It isn't our responsibility to cover for your mistakes, child." Orli begins sorting the papers on her desk back into order.

Kai bursts into the room, darts past me to press hugs on each of the Windies in turn, along with the human. "So good to see you! What sort of trouble have you been up to lately?"

"Sharon got made a proper Soldier of God," Jack says.

"Congratulations!"

"And then we raided a Game Tether--"

"Without me? You could have given me a call."

"--except now Sharon's all Djinned and we have the Game after us and the Seneschal doesn't want us hanging around here."

"Okay, less good." Kai spins away from them to give Orli a look more appropriate for a hopeful reliever than a grown angel. "Why not?"

"I scarcely need to explain the dangers of a direct attack by such powers. This Tether serves the Archangel of Lightning, and Dreams as well."

"All places that the eye of heaven visits are to a wise man ports and happy havens." I can't identify the quote, though I could guess the author. "You don't think that the security system Lightning installed is good enough?"

"Our security system is--" Orli frowns at the Windys. "Sufficient for ordinary incursions."

"And there's plenty of room. Two Seneschals. Backup standing by to be called in. You really think this place can't handle a few Gamesters trying to retrieve some stolen goods?"

"There are other powers at work here, child!" And...of course she would worry for the safety of this place. The Tether is as much her attuned as I am Zif's.

"Well, of course." Kai begins ticking names off on her fingers. "Technology, Nightmares, we've got potential for Fate to show up because of Al's hobby, Sirius's old master could return, the Game will try to jump Mannie if they know he's on Earth anyway, and any pack of demons from Baal's to Valefor's would earn brownie points with their Superiors for taking out an angelic Tether. It's a good thing we work for Heaven, or there'd be a few names on our own side to consider too."

"You only want an enemy you know is coming, so that you can hit them first," I murmur.

"Well, that too. I'm not much fond of the Game." Kai gives herself a quick shake, as if she's throwing off an unpleasant memory. "If they're going to try to full-frontal a Tether, they deserve whatever that gets them."

"Let them stay," says Tikva. No more than that.

Orli sighs. "I find myself argued to distraction in my own Tether. Very well, they may stay their three days. But I'll be requesting assistance from both Servitors of the Wind on various projects, and I expect full cooperation. No doubt there's some task even the Soldier might perform." 

"We'll be on our best behavior," says Jack, with a smile I trust less than Sirius.

Kai pokes him in the ribs. "Your best behavior involves running off with anything that isn't nailed down, laughing like a maniac. How about promising to be on _polite_ behavior?"

"Fine, polite behavior. Think we can manage that for three days?"

"Maybe," says Nip. This is not a reassuring statement, coming from a Seraph.

"Don't worry, I'll keep them in line." Sharon beams up at the Mercurian behind her. "Someone has to."


	19. In Which Many People Arrive At Once

I escape from Orli's office with only one new task and a comment about turning in my reports done in crayon. I would have explained what happened to the pen, but it didn't seem like the time to go into detail, especially the part in the sewers. So grateful that they finally got multiple bathrooms up and running again; being back on city water makes this place more pleasant.

Sharon ambushes me in the hallway. "Inventory!" She waves a notebook in my face. "Two. Days. Of inventory! I finished this morning and brought _that_ Cherub the list, and she told me to go through everything again and note down location and condition for every. Single. Item. I will be _so_ glad when we get out of here."

"Lightning doesn't always get along so well with humans," I say. "Sorry about that. At least you're not scrubbing floors?" I can only imagine that Jack deeply and truly cares about Sharon's well-being if he's putting up with the tasks Orli's been giving him. Knowing him, he's also setting up a few surprises that won't appear until long after he's gone. 

"Hey, it's not all bad. Tikva has been teaching me the Song of Healing. Right now I can only make it work if I sing, dance, and get really lucky, but she says that'll improve with time and practice." She scratches the back of her neck, and sighs. "I like Dreams. Not so much with the Lightning. No offense, but they're _annoying_. Nosha aside, they all treat me like I'm five years old. Okay, so Amets does too, so maybe it's not just the Word. I didn't realize so many angels would be like that. Is it because they have more Forces than I do?"

"Not so much that. More that they're older, and used to doing things their own way." We pass the control closet, where Zif and Mannie are bent over panels doing Sparkies-know-what. Between Orli's jobs for me and Mannie's inherent tendency to work himself half to death, I still haven't had a chance to drag him off to one of the recently mopped rooms upstairs. But then, considering that Jack and Nip did the mopping, maybe I don't want to spend time in those rooms until someone's checked them for traps. "And we're--it's a focus thing. Humans are all over the map, even in one individual. Between Word and Choir, we get all wrapped and ribboned in these essential concepts that make us up. It's easy for celestials to see the lack of focus as a weakness, and not realize how useful the versatility can be. Like a magnifying glass versus a prism."

"Huh. If you say so. Still makes me feel...useless. Like I can't do anything important."

I stop to face her. "Don't ever think that. Humans are the most important part of this War, no matter what anyone else says or implies."

"That's what Jack tells me, but... Come on. Mercurian. Of _course_ he thinks humans are great. It's in the job description."

"Small service is true service while it lasts. Of humblest friends, bright creature, scorn not one; the daisy, by the shadow that it casts, protects the lingering dew drop from the sun."

"Shakespeare?"

"Wordsworth. You going to be okay?"

"I think so. My life's a bundle of chaos right now, but Jack and Nip would tell me that's a good thing." Sirius trots by us, clutching a tool belt in his jaws. "Hey, how goes the machine?"

The ethereal wags his tail, but doesn't attempt to answer.

Sharon sighs. "Okay, back to inventory. I'm not going to give her any reason to complain. Be careful while you're out, and wreak some havoc on the behalf of us poor souls stuck on chores, will you?"

"I'll give it a try."

The store I need to visit won't open for another hour, and a touch against the Symphony tells me I can make it there in under ten minutes, even allowing for morning traffic. I do a circuit of the first floor, and find Amets and Nosha discussing infiltration of the local juvenile population. "I don't suppose you have a younger back-up vessel?" Amets asks me.

"No, though if you give me a few days I could shift the age on this one down ten years. What's up?"

"Rumors," says Nosha. She's in her little girl vessel, wearing unbearably cute overalls with a heart-shape pocket on the chest. Trust an Elohite to know how to pull off the adorable urchin look. "Specifically, a set of rumors about nefarious goings-on connected to this building. We need to make public announcements about the planned public face for this facility soon, if only to address these fears before they can spread."

"I believe Nightmares is targeting perception of our new Tether while it's still young and growing," Amets explains. His accent is also adorable, but I wouldn't dare tell him that. "At the moment the fear I'm hearing tends more towards childhood ghost stories than real terror, but the rumors are sliding darker. I've asked Nosha to help me identify who's frightened, and who might be the source."

"Vector targeting can be difficult among children," Nosha says. She takes my hands, and lets me spin her around in circles until she's giggling. "But! I intend to stomp this meme into the ground before it can get too far." The Elohite lets go of my hands, and staggers away from the momentum. "Want to help? You have experience with kids."

"Sure. I'll run the idea by Orli first--"

"Tikva would be the better choice to ask," Amets says. He stares at Nosha the way many do when they see an Elohite so cheerful. "Orli knows how to protect the _physical_ aspects of this Tether, but she seems less suited to deal with the subtle aspects of its nature."

Oh, Heavenly politics. I could do without. "Good thing both of them are here, isn't it?"

"I suppose so." Amets frowns at me. "Can I speak to you privately, Kai?"

"Sure." We grab an empty rooms on the first floor; not so many as there used to be, with people claiming them as offices, storage rooms for projects, or whatever else suits their fancy. There's a freedom and satisfaction in dealing with a building so long abandoned, filling it with purpose again. "What is it?"

"Al. He dreams about you."

"Hardly a shock, that. You've been guarding his dreams?"

"Yes. Though it can be challenging, with his irregular sleep schedule. Why he can't keep a regular bedtime..." The Malakite shakes his head. "Never mind. But, yes, you've been a regular feature in his dreams. In various aspects. What I'd like to ask is that you stay here until he finishes what he's building."

"Any particular reason?" There's an old mirror here, reflecting the two of us back at me. I run a finger through the grime that makes the image so fuzzy. One clear line of vision staring back at me, surrounded by haze. I've spent decades on Earth, and I still can't understand what it is to be an ordinary human, Symphony-deaf and half-blind to the wonders of this world. And yet all of Creation shudders, concentrates, sends beacons to Heaven and Hell on their hopes and fears.

"To give him hope and comfort. He fears that he's lost the first real friend he made, through his own fault. And because I'd rather his dreams center on you than try to return to the Domain of that machine. I don't know what lurks in the center of that place, but even dead godlings can leave behind dangerous servants." Amets tugs at his shirt. "Zif has been timing it. Seventeen seconds a day, it forks back to that Domain as well as Heaven. The Domain seemed deserted until we found it, but I don't trust that."

"I wasn't planning on heading out yet anyway." Not unless the Boss decides to call, and--once in decades? No, he's not going to call again soon.

"Thank you, Kai." The Malakite takes my hand. "I remember when the Halls of Creation were filled with residents of Heaven, and that your Archangel gave his support to my Lady. While I find your choice of friends strange, you've been nothing but helpful here. Should you need any assistance from me until Eli returns to Heaven, only let me know."

"Thank you."

"And now," Amets says, letting go to pull down on his shirt, "I need to speak with local children. I'm ready to invent a fictional girlfriend in London to whom I regularly write letters, if only to dissuade Maritza. Isn't she a bit _young_ to be so...aggressive?"

"Say you email your girlfriend, and met her online. They'll never believe you otherwise."

"I'll trust your more recent experience."

I double-back to check on Al, and run into the same triad I'd seen earlier. So that's who dropped down the Tether a few minutes ago. "Morning! What's up?"

"A routine investigation," says the Elohite. He offers me a polite, reassuring smile. "It's unlikely to be serious. We're here to speak with the Tether staff. Who's currently here?"

"Let's see." I count off names by Word. "Amets, Tikva, Mannie, Orli, Zif, Nosha, Jack, Nip, Sharon, me."

"Three of those names don't appear in our files," Galen says. "Newly assigned Tether staff?"

"No, Windies staying here for a few days. Because of--um. Stuff."

"Stuff?" The Seraph peers down at me. 

"Windy stuff. Um. There's someone I was meaning to talk with, catch you later!" I escape down the hallway before they can object, and they're distracted enough to not call after me. Wish I could come up with a creative, clever, and technically true response to give the triad, but on-the-spot excuses, like cooking, are an area of creativity I've never mastered.

Al looks down when I enter. He stands on a stepladder we dug out of a closet, adjusting a set of gears near the top of his machine. Sirius snoozes, or produces a good imitation of sleep, down below. "What was that noise?"

"A few new people showing up."

"Place is turning into a regular hotel." He tightens a bolt carefully, green aura reflecting off the metal. He's made as much progress since the Sparkies took over as he did in all the months before, now that parts and meals are supplied to him. "And they're all waiting on me. What's going to happen when I finish?"

"I don't know, Al. Nobody's going to kick you out, that's for sure." No matter what Mannie's preferences may be. "What do you want to do, when this is finished?"

"Don't know. Something else." He climbs down a few steps to begin adding another piece. "When I first started, I thought I'd be finding my father. Now... I'm not sure why I keep working on it. But it matters. It has to. Even if I don't know how." Al sits on a step of the ladder. "Will you disappear when it's finished?"

"Not immediately. But eventually, yes. I don't think staying here is my job." I can run a thousand errands, but it won't ever be the same as when I taught dancing, or rode with the Windies.

"Off to hunt demons." He scratches behind a horn. "If you're a demon-hunter, why are you still here?"

"Sometimes if you wait in the right place, the demons come to you. Saves the trouble of tracking them down. Besides. I want to make sure you're doing okay."

"Why?" He throws his hands in the air. "Why do you care? Why don't you hate me?"

"I have better ways to spend my time than being angry over your mistakes, Al." I leave my pacing to sit beside him on the stepladder, though the two of us barely fit on the same step. "You know better now, don't you?"

"I knew better then." He turns a wrench around again and again in his hands. "And that still didn't stop me. How the hell do I make up for something like that?"

"You don't." A startled jerk at this, and I think he didn't take it quite the way I meant it. "Listen, Al. You've done things you shouldn't have. What are you going to do next?"

"The right things. I hope." He lets the wrench fall to the floor with a clang. "I can try. But it doesn't make up for--"

"Stop. I'm not Judgment, and I'm no--I'm not the sort to go on about making fair trades or restitution. What you do now is the best you can, every single day."

"And that makes it better?"

"You don't do the right thing to make up for the past. You do the right thing because it's right."

"I'm not so good with moral absolutes, Kai."

"Okay, then." I drop back to the floor, spin in front of him. "Let me put it this way. I have friends who did things far worse than you've ever even dreamed of, for longer than you've lived. Most of their crimes so long gone that there is _no_ way for them to ever make up for it."

"Mannie?" I blink at him, and Al shrugs. "It's the way--he works like he's trying to make up for things, sometimes. I can identify. And I've heard enough talk about whether or not his old coworkers might show up--"

The kid stops, and stares at me. "Wait one fucking minute. When you're talking about having demons show up here--he was working with demons? And the way he--"

It's like watching all the ragged performance scenes come together for the final performance, behind his eyes. "He used to be a demon. Which makes him--and you--" Sirius opens his eyes, down in the depths of the machine.

"Yeah."

"I can't believe I--and you--" Al clutches his head, jerks away one hand as it hits the sharper point of a horn. "Could I have screwed this up any worse if I _tried_?"

"Sure, but it's not worth dwelling on that." Distant raised voices, outside the doors. Oddly, one of the voices sounds like Tikva. I would have read that Mercurian as more likely to do a strip-tease than to shout. "That sounds like trouble, if the kind without explosions. I'd better run. Um. You might want to stick around in here with Sirius for a while."

"Who _did_ show up?"

"Call it internal security." Sirius twitches as I say this, and creeps backwards to a darker corner of the machine.

"...oh, fuck." His boggling turns into cringing guilt. "What do _they_ want?"

"Discover the truth, punish the guilty, keep the wavering on the path of righteousness. Standard stuff. Don't go anywhere for a while, okay?"

I slip out the door before he can answer, and make sure it latches behind me. Judgment can break down a door as well as the next Word if they have a mind to do so, but they're not Windies to rattle every doorknob.

Definitely Tikva shouting. I track down the noise to where she's facing off with all three members of the triad. "This is _not_ your concern." Orli, for her part, only stands next to her, wearing an icy-cool expression of being above all of this.

"Your pardon, Seneschal," says Galen, "but this _is_ our concern. To let sorcerers and ethereals run amok on Earth--"

"Is none of your concern, when I have the situation well in hand!" Tikva's nearly trembling with anger. "You'd bring down heedless destruction on a Tether of my Lady because these creatures fall into categories you've declared verboten, with no further reason or cause." 

"We may judge the sorcerer's actions as they stand," says Galen, "but ethereals are not permitted on Earth to trouble the affairs of mortals, regardless of their intentions."

"You'd make Judgment the end of all Words," snarls Tikva. "And press your singular view across all of creation. How is this just?"

"You would question the judgment of the Most Just?" The Seraph sounds horrified. Themistokles didn't strike me as the kind to take that well. 

"If your Lord was so much in the dark regarding what Lucifer was doing before the Fall, then I see no reason whatsoever to trust _you_ to see the light of truth about _this_ situation." Orli doesn't bother to raise her voice when she says that.

"If you claim that there was any sort of precedent for the Fall, then we see no reason to trust _your_ judgment. _You_ hardly anticipated the Fall, either." His words have all the hiss to them of an angry Seraph, and Shamira appears positively furious. Galen's face is so blank only an Elohite could manage it.

I start walking backwards. This cannot end well.

Jack strides around the corner, mop in hand. "Look, I finished the entire sixth floor, and there are certain types of floors that are not _meant_ to sparkle, so I think we ought to call it a--" He stops a few steps ahead of me, assesses the situation, and turns around. "I'll go work on that a while longer. Probably haven't been scrubbing hard enough."

"Stop right _there_ , Jack," says Orli, and the Mercurian pauses mid-step.

The triad detaches from the Seneschals to converge on Jack. "You're dissonant," says the Elohite. "Why?"

"It's only a little bit of dissonance," Jack says, holding the mop in front of him like a shield. "It's entirely unfair that mummies should seem so very much like demons."

"And you're at this Tether to work it off?" asks Galen.

Jack gives me a quick, desperate "Come up with a distraction" look. "Don't you think that would be a good idea?"

"That isn't an answer." The Seraph wears outrage like a new jacket, and doesn't seem inclined to take it off. "What brought you here?"

"A series of cars, including a cute little yellow Mustang, depending on how far back you want to go." Jack passes me the mop. "Kai, want to lend me a hand upstairs?"

I pass it back. "I need to get to the hardware store."

"It doesn't open for another half hour!" Mop in my hands.

"Well, the last time I got the hardware store early I ran into a demon. Maybe it'll happen again." I shove the mop back at him.

"In which case you'd need backup. I'll go with you." He flashes his most charming smile at the triad. "Places to go, evil to fight, you know how it goes."

"Was there anyone in this _entire_ Tether," asks the Seraph, teeth gritting, "who was _not_ aware of the sorcerer and ethereals residing here?"

"What, Al's a sorcerer? That would explain the ethereals running around," Jack says. "I thought that was just, you know, something to do with Dreams."

For once, a triad's turning its full attention to me, and I'd really like to be anywhere else. "You didn't mention any of these things during your interview," says Galen, ever so mildly.

"You didn't ask." That's not an answer they're going to be happy with. "And my Boss asked me to watch out for this Tether. I can't do that if people are jumping in and slaying things without checking first. I figured the Seneschals would know how to handle reporting these things."

"It is _not_ your place to decide what to report and what to keep secret," says Themistokles. Jack edges away from me and towards the stairs while the triad's not looking at him. Great show of support, Jack. "You have been always cooperative before, by all reports. Why would you change this now?"

"This is the first time my Boss gave me a new job since he first sent me down to Earth. I didn't want to screw it up." Not that getting an entire triad staring at me like this suggests that I'm doing well on that count. "I'm sorry. I shouldn't be second-guessing you like that."

A set of gestures between the three of them. "Kai," says the Elohite, "you are now a subject of inquiry. Don't leave this Tether without the permission of--" He pauses, and frowns. "Without the permission of any of us, or another Servitor of Judgment. Is this is clear?"

"Yeah." Screwed up, I went and did it all wrong again. I've been running with Windies for too long if I thought it was a good idea to deliberately avoid talking to Judges about things. "Um. Can I go to the hardware store, though? I have a shopping list." One foot to another, I'm jittering here because I want to run, be somewhere else, out of this place and out of this city. Definitely been spending too much time with Windys.

Shamira touches me, and nods. Permission enough.

"Everyone?" asks Galen quietly, as I run for the basement stairs.

"We ought to," says the Cherub, "but this will wreak havoc with our schedule."

Down in the basement, Zif looks up, her arms elbow-deep in the innards of a machine. "There was shouting."

"Triad's putting everyone in the Tether under investigation, both Seneschals look ready to rip someone's head off, Jack picked up dissonance since I last saw him which is a little worrisome because that's twice in the last six months he's done that, and... that's pretty much it. You missed the part where Orli insulted the Archangel Dominic and his entire organization in a single sentence."

"I see." She pulls out one hand to tap at the controls on the panel.

"You don't seem too worried."

"Judgment is happy to put people under investigation for smaller things than this. Our Boss has not sent any criticism of our choices in response to our reports. Consequently," she says, and rips out a handful of wires, "I see no reason to worry. And it may do Mannie some good to experience this process without any harm coming to him. Was there something you needed?"

A few hours and a good friend in a private room. To get out of this place and not come back. My Boss back in Heaven, all the misunderstandings swept away. "Not really."

Clattering on the stairs as I reach for the door, and why would Shamira be running like--

I hit the ground rolling and scramble back to my feet because that's what I _do_ , ears ringing from noise and Symphony alike, brain buzzing at that sound, Zif and Shamira both staggered by the blast, can't identify any of the figures coming in through the hole where that door used to be but who needs identification? I'm not the sort to keep trophies, but one demon's watch is as good as the next. Dodge a half-casual swipe from the nearest one, they must think I'm still as mind-boggled as the Cherubim, and he gets watchband to the face.

Another explosion, so far away it must be stories up, though I can't hear any disturbance one way or another with this buzzing in my ears, can barely hear myself think through alarms that only half distinguish themselves from the ringing in my ears. I'm occupying one demon well enough with my watch against his knife, but the others don't slow down to engage anyone here.

A slash that barely hits me, cuts deep enough for all that. I swap hands on the watch; my right arm doesn't want to play along. "Is it worth asking which group you're with? So we can cross that one off the list."

Okay, that stab means no.

This demon's wearing a sturdy vessel, my attacks making less damage than I'm used to against it. Impassive face, doesn't seem half worried.

Nosha and Amets spill into the room, the Elohite still in its child vessel. A moment's assessment, then Nosha runs for the stairs. Amets holds out his hand, a shining sword too large for his vessel snapping into existence. I don't know the language he shouts in, but whatever battle cry he's chosen impresses me not so much as the way he swings that sword.

Sword and watch against one knife, it's hardly a fair fight. Not that either of us minds. I tangle the demon's feet with my own, bring him crashing down where Amets can slash from above. Zif runs past, and Godspeed to her, but we're occupied.

Bloody demon bits finally between us, took longer than I'd like, and he slashed Amets's leg once before going down. The Malakite holds his sword at the ready, checks the basement for any signs of lurking demons. "Who are they?"

"They didn't do introductions. Not Tech, I think." Upstairs with Amets close on my heels, the Judgment Cherub has vanished during our bit of havoc. "Nightmares, Game, someone else entirely..."

"Too mundane to be Nightmares." We pause at the doorway, seeing blood spatters in the hallway but no sign of fighting. Plenty of sounds, though. "Strength and hope, Kai."

"Speed be with you." We part ways, running off in either direction of the hall.

Orli stands halfway up the first flight of stairs, hazy green of Ethereal Shields flickering about her. There's blood on her hands, and she's doing something that requires most of her attention. "Upstairs," she says, though she's moving down. And--right. Al's going to need someone to protect him, and who better than a Cherub Seneschal? I take the stairs in three strides.

So much noise I can't tell one piece of it from another, shouts and Songs and gunshots, though I don't know who's doing the shooting. Didn't think anyone would be so stupid as to jump the entire Tether full-out. Upstairs, always upstairs, I think more of the noise comes from there than elsewhere.

Fourth floor I duck on the entrance, find myself rewarded with a bullet's whine overhead. Quick head-down roll while this one's still aiming high, one slam into her kneecap leaves her yelping and in a backwards fall that lets me slam a foot onto her other knee.

Then it's time to try not to fall back with the blood filling my mouth, can't stand Calabim with their no-speed destruction. She can't stand, but that's not about to stop that resonance, so I drop a foot onto the hand with the gun, a knee into her chest, and do my best to remove this vessel from her possession.

The Calabite snarls in Helltongue, rips the watch from my hand. I can feel my connection dissolving as it goes, nothing more than overpriced metal now. Fine, I can play that way. My right arm might not be so happy about serious activity right now, but I can still pull the gun out of her smashed hand.

And three bullets in the face are enough to put down just about anyone.

At the stairs to the fifth floor, I nearly run into Sharon coming down. She yelps, and grabs my hand as she goes by. "Downstairs! Downstairs!"

Ordinarily I'd argue or go to smack whatever she was running from, except that Nip's a half-second behind her, helter-skelter down the hallway. "Duck!"

The three of us hit the ground, and searing air hits me as flames scorch overhead. Roll back on my feet, find a way to jump this demon from the front when he's holding a weapon pointed at me--

The demon collapses down the stairs, and Jack slams the mop down on him again. "I just! Finished! That floor!" Far be it from me to let the Windies have all the fun; I get there in time to slam the Vapulan in the face with the gun I'm holding, and he shrieks, goes down between us.

Jack blinks at me, presses one hand against his side where blood drips down his shirt. "You... You could have just shot him, Kai."

Oh. Right. Guns mean bullets mean ranged attacks. "Sorry?"

"No matter." He puts one hand against the wall. "The top floor is full of Vapulans--"

"And we seem to have--I don't know who downstairs, but another group, I think." I recover my watch from the Calabite on the floor. "But we're winning. What's going on? Straight-on Tether attacks usually involve... I don't know. More explosives."

"A distraction?" Nip asks. She picks up the weapon that demon on the stairs had been carrying, and begins searching it for controls. "But if so, what from?"

"Don't know, not time to figure it out. Demons to smack around." Jack grins. "Back upstairs?"

This time, I make it halfway up the stairs before I'm nearly run over by Zif and Nosha, running down. "She's driving," Zif says, and Nosha tosses me a set of keys that I've caught before I'm sure what's going on.

"Wait, where?" I'm not about to pass up a chance to drive, especially if it's Nosha's car, double-especially if they're suggesting vehicular manslaughter--well, demonslaughter--but the Windies are already disappearing upstairs, and blood-covered Nosha with a burn along her face pulls me downstairs.

"Getting Mannie," Zif tells me, on the third floor.

"We'll take my car," says Nosha, on the second. "But you drive."

Second floor, we pass by Tikva and someone else, a dense cloud of smoke around them. The Seneschal seems to have the situation under control, which is good, because I have no idea what's going on. "Where is he?"

"In the car!" Zif sweeps Nosha up into her arms, as the Elohite begins to fall behind.

"He's in the car?"

"No, we'll talk in the car!"

First floor, choked with acidic fog, but Zif runs through and I'm not leaving her behind. Basement, out through the hole where a door used to be, upstairs past a bewildered pack of children, out to the alley, car arrives with Nosha's touch of Essence, and I drive.

In the back seat, Nosha shifts to another vessel, the adult male. "I'll have to get my other vessel cleaned up when we're done," he says calmly. "Some children will need reassurance."

"Zif, which direction?" I don't have a Cherub's attunement to pull me in the right direction.

"That way." She points--towards a building, and I'm sure she didn't grab me so that I could drive her across the street. So it's down one street, take a turn, straight, left, straight, wrong way down a dead end street, and somewhere at the end? I don't know why Mannie's that far away from the Tether, but I aim to find out.


	20. In Which Family Matters Remain Unresolved

There's shouting in the hallway, and I want no part of it. From what few words I can catch, I suspect the Judges have discovered certain eccentricities of this Tether. The Purity Crusade was well before my time, but apparently old grudges die hard. One would think that Judgment might reconsider its policies about ethereals on Earth, if only to avoid sending so many rushing straight to Beleth. I expect to see any change no time soon, with the current Lord Commander of the armies of Heaven. At least my Boss stays out of politics, except as necessary.

Three lights for the rooftop door flicker between green and blue for a moment, before settling down on blue again. If the Windies can't keep their hands to themselves... I must ask Orli about _chaining_ Jack and Nip to their cleaning equipment, though I doubt this would solve the problem. I tap open the basement intercom. "Zif?"

"Yes?"

"Upstairs door has flickering lights again. I'm going to go see if the Windies are messing with it, or if there's any residual damage from when Jack broke in. I _thought_ I'd repaired that, but I'd rather not leave it to chance."

"Understood."

This floor is laid out with the center room where the machine rests surrounded by corridors, and thus I can detour to the right instead of taking the left-hand route, avoiding Judges and Seneschals entirely. If Judgment wishes to speak with me, they can speak with my Cherub first.

I meet Jack on the second floor, storming by with mop in hand. "Have you been playing with the rooftop door again?"

"Me? No, there's no challenge in attacking a security system I've already broken. Of course, it would go easier the second time through--"

"No doubt." I leave him to his bragging, and reflect that I'd trust Jack in matters of security only so far as I could see him, and then only if he were chained to a floor far from any walls. And probably even at that point I'd insist on searching his pockets.

I find myself on the fourth floor before I remember that we have sufficient power now to use the elevator. Either I'm wasting time to avoid going back downstairs, or Kai has given me more than his coffee habit. All my previous knowledge of Ofanim had never suggested they had such powers of reverse osmosis. I hope he hasn't acquired any of my bad habits.

I wouldn't mind if he acquired more critical thinking skills, perhaps.

On the fifth floor, Nip shoves a broom about with one hand while picking the lock on a door with her other. She looks up as I approach, but doesn't stop. "I don't know why they locked this one," she says. "Do you?"

"Not specifically. Have you been doing anything to the rooftop door or its alarm systems?"

"Not since--" Nip's words cut off in the furious rush of disturbance around us. She drops the broom. "Song of Thunder. Downstairs." I can barely hear her through alarms and the buzzing of disturbed Symphony. And then she's dashing away with all the graceless speed of someone who prefers coils to legs, but isn't about to let that slow her down. 

Zif's downstairs, I don't know where--a second explosion, above me, less disturbance and ah, but that's a sound I well recognize, having been around when the field tests were going on. Sounds like they never solved the problem with the heat-sink coils. And I am not about to let any damned Vapulans waltz through my security system without doing something about it.

I'm not the sort to run towards danger, and so I wait at the bottom of the stairs, against the wall. They'll send someone with heavy firepower and a tough vessel down first, the definition of heavy firepower varying by what their actual objectives are. This is no subtle infiltration to undermine the nature of the Tether, and I'm glad I won't be in charge of building the cover-up story to explain all the noise. Not quite explosive enough yet for a "burn to the ground and salt the earth" approach. Depending on how much they know about this place, they might be trying for a brute force hit-and-run on the machine downstairs, or Al.

It would be un-angelic of me to wish them success in the latter. This does not keep me from entertaining the notion until I hear footsteps on the stairs.

The demon checks around the staircase exit to face me exactly as I put one hand on the barrel of his weapon and send blue-sparking electricity running through his weapon and vessel alike. I must remember to ask Zif for any clever strategies she knows that use this attunement.

He only flinches, not enough damage to drop him, but sparks flashing through his eyes leave the demon staring blankly for a few seconds, and that's enough time for me to turn and run. Time to see if they took my recommendation for stabilizing the power source at the expense of firepower--

The demon shrieks beneath the explosion. That would be a no. If Zif weren't sure to sit me down for another discussion on acceptable levels of risk, I would track down the location of the Balseraph in charge of that project just to send him an _I told you so_. Orli will be grumpy at the scorched hole in the staircase, but building repair costs less than demon removal.

I'll consider that my good deed for the day. I round the corner at an undignified run, and find myself surprised that nothing explodes against the walls around me. Not the most aggressive attack team I've met. They must be aiming for a specific target, and there's nothing important in the building above the second floor. Downstairs, then--

It seems the group that attacked from below isn't concentrating on the first few floors, because I have to stop and retreat back around a corner as another one hits this floor. Why couldn't the architect who designed this building put all the staircases next to each other? I catch only a glimpse of the woman as she's looking the other way, and can hope she didn't notice me. Not a touch of tech to see on her except for an ordinary gun. Nightmares or the Game, and I'd far prefer the former.

She doesn't round the corner; she's off in the other direction, and if I'm lucky the Vapulans have taken the route that will bring them to her and not right behind me. If I'm exceedingly lucky, sufficiently poor planning will have gone into coordinating the efforts that a trigger-happy demon will shoot another in a case of mistaken identity, but that's not likely. Now, if I wait a moment for her to turn a corner, I can probably head for the stairs again while everyone on this floor tries to figure out what's happening. Zif ought to be here any moment.

A young man with sword in hand rounds the corner behind me, gives me a quick look. "On staff," he says, pointing. Whirls around just as a Vapulan comes around the corner. "Not on staff!" He leaps past me just as the tell-tale whine of a ready charge gears up. I drop down to avoid the excess energy pouring out of the demon's gun, and half the young man's torso dissolves, leaving me in the hallway with a demon annoyed at the sword sticking into his chest. I scramble back to my feet well aware of what's going to happen when that thing recharges--

The same young man snaps back into view in front of the demon with a new vessel, yanks out his sword, and decapitates the demon in a quick swing. "Wow," he says, staring down at his older vessel. "That looks a lot more painful than it felt." He gives me a chipper smile. "And how may I help you? The rest of my team should be along shortly."

"That way," I say, pointing to where I last left the heavily armed pack of demons. "You might want distance weapons--"

"Oh, don't worry about us!" The Malakite gives me a chipper salute and charges off in the indicated direction, sword drawn.

One less thing for me to worry about. I take a quick breath, head back for the stairs. The Seneschals will be on the first floor, and I'd rather be as close to them as possible. At the bottom of the stairs I can see Nosha tangling with some demon, I didn't know the Elohite could do knife work like that, but she'll need a hand--

Metal and skin slam around my throat, I stagger as the weapon-clad arm pulls me back against a demon I didn't hear come up behind me. I respond with another splash of electricity--

Barely a twitch from behind. "Nice trick, Mannie," says a voice I know all too well, and he's stronger than I am, but Zif will be here any moment--

Hari throws a roar of Essence into I don't know what, and the building disappears around me.

An office I don't recognize, bare walls providing no clue, no more Tether-feel to the place. No wonder he had to call up that much Essence, pulling a second person along with one of the Songs of Motion. He shoves me face-first into the wall, detaches while I'm reeling. No surprise when I turn to see the weapon he aims at me, laced up along his arm and shoulder with stabilizers, power packs. Another design I recognize, one of Hari's own projects, and I don't dare jump celestial so long as that's pointed in my direction. I can't remember how far the Song might have taken me. Surely no further than outside the city, and Zif will find me. If I can avoid dying for that long.

Hari shakes his head. "Really, Mannie. You think a little Zapper power like that is going to bother me? I expected more of you. At least a few weapons. A better exit strategy. What _have_ the fluffwings done to you?" He wears his favorite vessel, the one he uses around humans and pretty little Mercurians he's trying to seduce. I suppose everyone needs a hobby, but we would have had fewer arguments long ago if he'd stuck to building the perfect mousetrap.

"A new job, redemption, that sort of thing," I say, and pull on my mask of casual disdain. If he believes I'm afraid, he's liable to shoot me out of sheer disgust. "I see you still haven't reduced the power consumption on that device. Or did you expect to be using it for three hours? Surely you're still in beta if you need that many supplemental power sources."

"It'll suffice for anything I need today," Hari says. The door opens behind him, and he's confident enough in this place to not even look back. I hope Zif is bringing plenty of backup, once they've finished clearing the Tether.

Aglaya steps inside. Wearing the same sunglasses as before. They _have_ been expecting me, haven't they? "Defenses set," she murmurs, the soft sweet voice she always used when approaching a supervisor. "Anything else?"

"Essence," Hari says, and holds out his free hand for her to touch. "Fourteen will suffice."

"I have twelve," she says. "Anything else?" Even with her eyes shaded, she refuses to look at me. A strange little Impudite, and I could spare her a moment of sympathy if I weren't so ready to rip everyone in this place to shreds. Now, how that might be accomplished... More difficult.

"Help watch the front door," Hari says. The two of us matching stares across the room, while Aglaya nods, gaze fixed on the floor, and exits quietly.

The door closes again, and Hari gives me a more thoroughly appraising look. "So the Host didn't rip you apart. I had thought the way the Game reassured us that there was no such thing as a redeemed Lilim seemed a touch defensive. How does that--no, I'll spare the detailed questions for later."

"I should have known that you'd want to come have a chat," I say, and why am I not being shot right now? Hari's as mad as the next Habbalite, but hardly the sort for letting old grudges be forgotten. "If you'd called ahead, we could have done coffee, instead of feeding your minions to annoyed Malakim."

"They're expendable," Hari says, with a shrug. "They'll do a bit of damage, keep people distracted, and present a plausible appearance of a real attack."

"Plausible enough to convince another Word with interests in the area to give you some assistance. The Game would have gone for a more subtle assault." What this means clicks. "You spent that many resources on a _feint_? On a Tether of Lighting? Why? I know you're insane, but I never thought you were stupid enough to waste personnel and equipment like that, much less annoy allies in the process. What could you possibly get out of this mess to make that worth it?" I cannot read his game, and this unsettles me. Hari is full of subtleties and twists, but always predictable in motivations. I can't see what reward he'd pull from these actions.

"What, did you lose Ethereal Forces when you ran off to play with the fluffwings in Heaven?" Hari laughs, and taps me in the chest with the mouth of his weapon. "As the humans say: I've got you, babe."

That is not what I wanted to hear.

"They seem to have taken care of you well enough," Hari continues, in the clinical tone he reserves for analyzing his projects. "They obviously haven't stripped your vessel or Corporeal Forces, which would have made reacquiring you far more complicated." I can picture, for one bizarre moment, Hari storming the gates of Heaven to demand they hand me over. Or, more likely, convincing someone else to do it for him. "They even let you wander about alone, or so Aglaya tells me. We're going to have _so_ many questions for you, later." He smirks. "Rumor has it you're even getting laid. Is that how they stole you?"

I could certainly have done without _that_ conversational detour. "It's been ages, and I'd love to chat, but I have reports to submit and filing to do. Why don't we do lunch? I can pencil you in for next Tuesday. If nothing has blown up in your face between now and then, we can go over all these questions then."

"I think you're stalling, Mannie." Not that I see him making any sudden moves. Waiting for something to happen, or someone to arrive. I hate trying to analyze a situation on half guesswork and speculation. His tone drops into that near-convincing camaraderie he can pull out as needed. "I realize you're concerned, but don't worry. We're going to get your head back on straight, however long it takes to untwist you from what they've told you. It might take some work, but I'm up to the challenge."

"All this, for me?" I keep my words light to hold back the screaming that's started in the back of my mind. "And to think, I didn't know you cared."

"Of course I cared!" Like flicking the lights off in a room, he switches into an entirely familiar rage. The weapon shoves up under my chin until I have to tilt my head back, still pressed against the wall. "How could you do that? How could you _dare_ to betray us? You were made with Forces from the Genius Archangel himself, as much as I was!"

"You sabotaged my project, suborned my staff, and made me out to look incompetent! What did you _expect_ me to do?" Shouting back at him comforts me like an old coat, so much easier than dealing with my fears.

"You were supposed to come to me for help," Hari hisses. "You were _supposed_ to come crawling back to beg me for some way out of the mess. I would have been able to protect you, and you would have _owed_ me."

"What kind of idiot are you? I've never worked for you, I wasn't going to start right when you finally managed to _thoroughly_ stab me in the back."

"I didn't expect you to go Renegade." He's pulling himself back down into a colder sort of calm. "I never thought you were that stupid. But at least the Host found you before the Game did. The Genius Archangel is eager to have you back. He's never had a Bright Lilim to experiment with before."

Vapula himself, with such kind eyes, leaning down towards me--

"Shhh," says Hari, and there's still the gun under my chin, but his other hand is on my shoulder as he leans in close. I cannot wear any masks, I cannot _stay_ here. "Don't worry. He won't pull you to pieces, when he's done he'll only strip your Corporeal Forces and give you to me. He promised. Once you're fixed you'll be able to do good work again, you're _competent_ , I can use that. Give it a century or so and maybe you'll even be allowed back on Earth. It's going to be okay. I'll take care of everything."

Not far from here, the sound of an explosion, several shots from the sort of weapon Aglaya carries. Hari frowns, and steps back. I cannot think clearly, I can barely _breathe_ , and I don't know. What to do. This close to me he can slam me unconscious if I try to run, rip at my soul if I leap celestial, I cannot. Get anywhere.

Aglaya opens the door. "A problem," she murmurs. "It's been dealt with." Who's lost a vessel again on my account?

"Good," says Hari. He doesn't turn around. Eyes only for me. "Go get the--"

And drops down before me, a splashy hole drilled through his head. There's a hole, about the same size, in the wall right next to me.

Aglaya looks down at him, her gun still out. "That's for pushing me, you bastard," she says, no sweetness left in her voice. "May you rot in Hell for a thousand years before anyone trusts you on Earth again, may you never be given a Word, and may Vapula strip your Distinctions and Forces alike."

I have no coherent response available.

Aglaya turns a smile on me, so dreamy I can read insanity in that as easily as in her actions. "Do you know, I've been waiting to do that ever since he told me that he set the Hellsworn on me."

"Why..." I don't even know where to start.

The Impudite shrugs, and crouches down to pull a ring off of Hari's finger. She tosses it to me. "Never could stand Habbalah. I know what real angels are. Thank you for keeping him occupied. I could nearly imagine all three of us were back in Russia, from that sort of shouting." With deft fingers, she detaches a few couplings on his weapon. "How strange, that I told the truth to you through and through. Even to your Ofanite friend. Hari was indeed coming to the city. Because I told him you were here, but is that important now?" Aglaya stands up again, gun waving lazily in my direction. "I had to make sure you would stay long enough for him to get here. You're the only one who distracts him enough to give me that chance. Vapula will be less than pleased with how much was spent on such a, dare I say it, _failure_."

"You would _play_ me for your own ends--"

"Yes. Or anyone else." She stands there, gun still swaying. I'm not about to try to arm-wrestle an insane Impudite, and so I wait quietly, and hope Zif is still coming for me. "You don't know what Falling is like. What it is to realize what you've become, that it was your _choice_ to reach that place. Don't you dare judge me, Lilim."

I can't read anything when I can't see her eyes. "What will you do now? When he finds out--"

"He won't." She flips the gun about and hands it to me, handle-first. "I'll be showing up at my Heart in another moment. I did tell him there was a problem, and it wasn't my fault the angels shot him while he was distracted. I tried to run, but they got me too." Her smile turns grim. "I'm not very important. They won't examine my story too closely. He's the one who'll have to explain these events to our Prince in person. I wish I could see that."

"Aglaya..." I have the gun, and I don't know what to do with it. "You served Lightning once. You have no love for your Prince. Why won't you run back? Come to the Tether--"

"No!" The Impudite shudders before me, visibly reasserts control. "Heaven wants Mercurians, not Impudites, and I would die before making myself that helpless again. I've done what I can. Now, please. Shoot me before my story falls apart."

"This is insane." I can't shoot an unarmed little Impudite who's standing there before me, and she takes off her glasses, and I _see_ what she Needs, I know the one she wants to see again. "I'm sorry. I can't give you that unless--"

"I know." She hands me her glasses, and shivers. "Dissonance will make my story more authentic. Now. If you will shoot me, I will owe you for this. I've already dealt with the defenses outside. Perhaps I'll tell them you geased me in exchange for not dragging me back to a Tether to be burned there. Is it a deal?"

I shoot her between the eyes, as the Geas wraps itself around her. "Deal."

No one alive in the office but me.

I walk into the hallway. Two more dead bodies, the neat round holes evidence of who shot them. Aglaya plays a dangerous game to think she can convince all of them unseen angels attacked. It's no business of mine; she'll succeed or she won't, and either way she's out of my life again.

This door was wired with some security device, now mangled in an explosion. So perhaps she set it to go off from a trigger she held, took out the other two demons while they were distracted by the explosion and expecting an attack--no matter. It's not my game. This door opens to a back room, some sort of hidden entrance to a storage room.

The door opposite me slams open, dropping three of my friends into the room. Zif stops just past me, in the doorway. "Anyone else?"

"All dead." My words feel strange in my mouth. Nosha begins examining the charges set around the door. "It's...complicated."

Kai dances on past me, and surveys the dead bodies laid out on the floor. Looks at me. "Okay, I have to say, I'm _impressed_."

"What?" I remember the gun in my hands. "I didn't...ah. It's complicated."

"We need to call in cleanup," Nosha says, shaking his head. Back in his adult vessel now, and I appreciate the comfort when he looks at me, puts one arm around me. "What happened?"

"It's complicated." My hands have started shaking. All the nervous energy pouring back through. "If you want any samples of VapuTech, now would be the time to grab it. I have some in my pockets, I think..." I can't remember where I put the ring and glasses Aglaya handed me. "I'll explain. Later."

Zif pulls me away, Kai trailing along behind. "Nosha, if we borrow your car, could you arrange cleanup?"

"Sure thing." The Elohite lets go of me. "Don't worry. I'll take care of everything."

None of them understand why I'm laughing. I don't think I could explain.


	21. In Which Explanations Can Wait

Ordinarily I wouldn't pass up the chance to drive, but this is one time when I'm happy to let Zif have the wheel. Mannie's not quite blank-eyed, but close enough to it that I don't want to let go of him for an instant. His Cherub is on the phone while driving, and I get half of conversations about clean-up at the Tether. Sounds like they finished all the fun while we were out.

"Hey," I say, because he still hasn't tried to explain anything, or done much but hold onto me since we got into the car. "You want to talk about it?"

"Not. Yet." My close-and-personal Bright Lilim has an iron grip, and I think I'll get bruises from the way he's holding onto me, but I can live with that. "I didn't handle that well," he adds, not loudly.

"All them dead, you with a nosebleed? I think you did fine." I shift into a more comfortable position, difficult with seatbelt and Mannie both holding me in. "How much better could you have done?"

"I shouldn't have panicked. I should have been more convincing, when I spoke with Aglaya."

"Mannie?"

"Yes?"

"Stop beating yourself up about it and relax. You're alive, the Tether's been secured, and a whole lot of demons lost their vessels in messy ways. As ways to end the day go, it could be worse."

"Yes. It could be much worse." But as he says that he sighs, and loosens his grip a touch. "Zif, how far back to the Tether?"

"Not very, but I'm driving in circles for the moment," Zif says. "The Kyriotates are having enough trouble with crowd control already."

"We could stop somewhere further away," I suggest. Show off my new bike, see if Mannie perks up with speed the way I do. Or find a motel, I know things to do in a motel.

"I'm not moving further than this from the Tether," Zif says shortly, and I recall that she's been chasing after her stolen attuned, and hasn't had a chance to destroy any of the people who did it. I can see a few reasons why she'd be on the twitchy side, so much as Zif ever seems twitchy.

"I can work with that." Movement is movement, even if I'm not driving, and so I curl up around Mannie in the back seat. I can wait as long as it takes.

Zif doesn't pull the car back into the alleyway until well after sunset. Mannie's recovered enough that when we get out he only keeps his hand in mine. I want to know what happened, find out what's upset him so much, but if he's not responding to Zif's gentle questions, he's not going to tell me yet. I can wait, I can wait. Not like I'm going anywhere in the middle of all this.

Down in the basement, Orli supervises two people I don't recognize as they work on building more wall over the hole where the door used to be. "What happened?" asks Zif, as we enter. Even I can read the real question behind her words.

"A set of gang members broke in to rob the place, and managed to cause an electrical short that blew out a generator. There was a small fire that's since been contained, and what people _thought_ were gunshots were actually fuses blowing. The police have dealt with the intruders. A few people injured in the chaos were taken off to the hospital." Orli looks down on me. "Did you _have_ to leave a body right in front of the hole in the wall? We had to use two Kyriotates on the paramedics to explain away that part."

"Sorry. I was a little distracted at the time."

"No apologies needed, child. But you might want to remember, for future incidents, that a little forethought can save a great deal of cleanup." She waves us away.

Upstairs again. The smoke's cleared away, though the area still smells of burnt carpet and insulation. Tikva stands in front of the triad, but wonder of wonders, all of them are speaking politely and quietly. The Seraph's shirt has been speckled with burnt holes, and his Cherub holds onto him--well. Much like the way Zif and I are escorting Mannie through here.

Themistokles shakes his head as I approach. "When we told you to stay in the Tether--"

"Something came up!"

He looks over the three of us. "Wheel, are you entirely incapable of following orders?"

Mannie's hand tightens in mine. "I try. But I'm not used to having specific orders to follow," I say. "I couldn't just--"

"Later," says the Seraph, and he waves us on.

Zif leads us into the central room. The machine still stands, though I don't know if I'd be able to tell if it had been affected. Blood's been scattered across half the room. Amets has a mop and a bucket, drawing clean lines on the floor.

"Half a minute," I tell Mannie, and pry my hand out of his. "Be right back." And then I walk over to where Al's sitting, arms wrapped around his knees. Next to the body of an ethereal spirit whose nature was to protect.

"He's dead," Al whispers. I crouch down in front of him. "Orli came and she stopped them, but he's already dead."

"Doesn't mean he's gone," I say. "He's an ethereal, not a human. Death doesn't work the same way for them."

And then Amets kneels down beside Al, blood coating the knees of his pants. "Al," he says, and takes the boy's hand. "I'll find him. I can't bring him back, but I'll find Sirius for you. So that you can know."

I leave the two of them. Amets has been in the kid's dreams enough to know what Al needs more than I can possibly tell. "Hey," I say to Mannie. "Give me a call when you want to talk, okay?" And to Zif, "You're taking him home, right?"

"Promptly."

For a moment, a winged quagga stands before me, Mannie wears blue-lightning wings across his back, and then they're gone. Back in Heaven, where Mannie can curl up around his Heart until he's ready to talk. I intend to visit soon; my Heart rests in a drawer of Mannie's desk, which would provide excuse if I couldn't find any other.

But I have a few things to do first.

Back outside the room, I find Sharon in the middle of a sentence. "--just ask first!"

"They were in a hurry," says Tikva, soothingly, and presses Sharon's hands inside hers. "I'm sorry if it was disconcerting."

"It's not like I haven't been Kyrioed before," Sharon says, "but I'd like a little warning, that's all." She sees me, and asks, "How's the significant other?"

"Reeling. But I think he'll be okay."

"Hey, it's not every day you get bamfed out of a place by demons. Good to hear you found him in time."

I'm not sure that's what we did, but I don't want to get into that until I know the full story. Or as much of the full story as I'm going to get. "You okay?"

"One bullet through a leg. Hurt like hell, but I fixed it myself!" Sharon beams at me. "Okay, so it took me three tries, but I managed."

"Good work. Nip and Jack could use someone that knows how to fix things as well as break them hanging around."

"That's the idea," says Tikva, and her smile at me is like spring breaking through winter.

Takes me a few minutes to track down the triad; they've been busy tonight. I catch them on the third floor, mid-lecture to a cheerfully incorrigible Nip. I pace the stairs until they finish.

"Kai," says Galen, "we would ask that you come with us to answer certain charges put against you."

I spin before them. Looking forward to being in Heaven again, fiery wheel across the sky, even if it's for this. "Understood. I'm all yours."


	22. In Which Things Move

I'm finishing up a standard weekly report (and how strange to have a standard week, for once) when Maharang zips in through the reliever flap in my office door. "Ta-da!"

I take the cup of coffee it presents me. "A new blend?"

"No, no, no. Look!" Maharang drops down on my shoulder, bouncing in excitement. "It's finished!"

The mug I've been handed holds two switches on the handle. I flick one, and the mug warms in my hand. "That one's the heater," my reliever explains. "So you never ever need to worry about lukewarm coffee. Try the other one! The other one was the hard part. I needed Teresa to help me with that."

I hit the other switch, and the thin ring of metal just inside the rim of the cup expands to form a tight cover of concentric circles. "You...made me a coffee mug with a lid."

"So that when I leave you messages, they won't get wet! Do you like it?"

"I love it. It's marvelous. And a very compact design. How's it powered?"

"There's a charging station! It's kinda big, but you should only need to charge it once a week or so. Oh, and never _ever_ microwave it, really seriously ever." Maharang kisses me on the cheek. "I'm glad you like it. You know, I want to be just like you when I grow up."

What could I have been, if I'd never seen Hell? Some questions, as Zif would tell me, have no answers. "I know. Don't you have a physics class right now?"

"Oh! Don't want to be late." It dashes away as fast as its wings will take it.

I finish the report, send it off. Resist the urge to dissect the mug and rewire it; that would be rude, with a gift.

"Hey."

I spin my chair around. "Kai. What brings you here?"

A wheel of flame rolls into my office, wraps me up in the coils of its loop. "Al's about to finish his machine. Putting in the last piece as soon as I get down there. Want to come and see?"

"I'd rather not." I haven't been back to that Tether since Zif took me back home, took me to her office, shut the door, let me talk until I couldn't say anything more. There are some places and people I don't want to see.

"Please, Mannie. He asked for you to come."

I could say no to Al in a heartbeat, but I have a difficult time saying no to my batty little Ofanite. "Fine, I'll come along. Though I won't be staying for long." I send Gariel an email about being out of the office for an hour or so, and then follow Kai down the corridors.

I recognize most of the people we pass, though not well enough to remember names or specializations for all of them. And many of them recognize Kai, which I hadn't expected. We're slowed momentarily by two Ofanim spinning over to mine, asking after some vehicle testing, and then dashing off again. "Getting to know all the local Sparkies, I see."

"Something like that." I can't read Ofanite body language well, leaving Kai's response more ambiguous than I'd like.

At the top of the Tether, we pause to check the readout of destination, Tether details, Seneschal name (and a footnote about Tikva, the _other_ Seneschal). I drop through first, pulling my vessel on around me, and a moment later Kai is beside me, wearing her customary grin. "Come on. It's not a big ceremony or anything, but this should be good."

The machine has grown half again in size since I last saw it, though it's nowhere near the diameter of the great machine we saw in that Domain. All hand-made bits and crudely attached pieces, there's no _elegance_ to it. I don't know why anyone wants to make a production out of finishing such a thing. The room smells of fresh paint.

Orli and Tikva stand on either side of the machine, and Nosha is there, bouncing on her heels. She holds up a sticky green lollipop as Kai and I step up closer. "Want a lick?"

"No thank you." She laughs, and drops it into the pocket of her overalls. "That's disgusting, Nosha."

"Like a bit of swapped spit or pocket lint ever hurt someone."

"Actually," says Kai, "I heard this one story about lint--" She stops, and waves. "Hey, Al, I dragged him here. Ready to go?"

"Yeah." The little bastard Gorgon wears a baseball cap today, and the room is brightly lit; if I weren't looking for it, I'd barely be able to see the green glow lingering on his skin. He stands in front of the machine, hands clasped behind his back. "So. Um. Everyone, thanks for coming, and for all the help you gave me, and for not kicking me out on my sorry ass when I was a jerk." He turns around abruptly, and slots the last piece, a single gear, into place.

"Can I go now?" I murmur to Kai.

She pokes me in the ribs. "Not yet."

"Kai. It doesn't _do_ anything. It's a model, that's all."

"Of course it doesn't do anything," she says, and her grin tells me this is something she's been planning. "Doesn't have any power, does it?"

"What, you want me to jump-start this mess?"

"Well," she says innocently, "I could grab my motorcycle and some jumper cables. But I thought your way would be more efficient."

And Al's waiting. Not quite looking at me, but waiting, and when I read what he Needs, it's such a simple, harmless thing. I'll leave others to take care of what he wants; I don't want him beholden to me anyway.

So I step up to the machine, touch a single wire, and call out electricity as my Boss gave me the power to do.

Sparks fly along the wires, through gears and tubes and struts, wrap around joints, until in the center of the machine all the sparks gather into a tiny sphere of blue light. The sphere lingers for a moment, dissipates into nothing again.

And a gear turns.

A pendulum swings.

Piece by piece, the machine creaks, groans, whirrs, and it _moves_ , every piece of it whirling into motion, no matter that gravity and every other law of physics say this cannot possibly be happening.

Nosha claps her hands. "It works!"

"How?"

Orli shrugs, and smiles at me. "I don't know the answer to that, child. Do you?"

"No, but--how? How does this _work_? The gravity's pulling in one direction, I only gave it a brief surge of power, it makes no _sense_." No slowing in the way it moves, now, and no speeding up, only the methodical churn of a machine that has been performing one action for an eternity, will continue it for another eternity. "How?"

"Not every question has an answer," says Nosha, and she puts her hand in mine. Sticky little child's fingers. "But isn't it beautiful?"

"I made that," says Al, to himself. "I really made that."

And after a time, when I find no one has a better answer than what I've been able to discover myself, I return to my office, where things make sense.

Kai sneaks fiery coils around me in the midst of a tricky little bit of translation I'm doing. Every demon _would_ use an individual form of shorthand on design notes. "Got a minute?"

"Of course." I have Ofanite all around me for a moment, warm tangled loop tickling at me, and then Kai pulls back to make itself a single loop again. "What do you need?"

"So. I finished up talking with Judgment. About the stuff I've been doing."

"What did they say?" A moment of guilt that I'd forgotten that complication, all the more difficult to surmount for a Servitor of Creation.

"Pretty simple. They don't think I'm ready to handle running around on my own, not without a pre-existing Role and assignment. So I'm limited strictly to Heaven and the Tethers of approved Words until I officially start working for an Archangel. Well. A different Archangel." Kai's ring shifts and splits, spinning in two different directions at once. "I can't blame them for the decision, I'm supposed to be working for someone. And I am, but...they don't think I can be responsible for myself so much of the time."

"I'm sorry." For how much this hurts Kai, for my own part in the destruction of its last Role and vessel. "What are you going to do?"

"I can't stay here in Heaven, Mannie. It's home, but I have _work_ to do, and I can't be much useful up here. All the things I can do, they're aimed at helping downstairs."

And so it's off to join up with the Wind, ride away into the night again. Calling every so often, and never being here. "So where will you go?" I hate knowing the answer before it comes.

Kai's ring tilts down to parallel the floor, snaps back up. An Ofanite's bow. "Kai, Ofanite of Creation, in service to Lightning. I made the appointment yesterday, and spoke with Jean today, when I got back from the Tether. It's official now. Looks like I'll be working at that Tether for a while longer, giving Orli a hand, and then... I don't know what after that. I guess they'll tell me."

I can't say I'm sorry, even knowing how that must feel. "Thank you. I...thought you would choose the Wind."

"Nah. Not really my thing. Great fun to hang around with, but doing that full time? Hardly. Besides," Kai adds, in the sort of voice that means it's trying to move to lighter subjects, "Sparkies get all the fun toys."

"And you're happy with this?"

"Not so happy as I'd be if--" Kai stops, whirls for a moment. "It's not ideal, but it's better than a lot of other choices. And I like your--our Boss. He'll know where to use me best." It sends of a shower off red sparks. "Besides. It's only until Dad gets back."


	23. An Epilogue, With A Tether

The reporters who stood on the steps were mostly from local papers, though a few had come from more distant locations on account of the woman who stood before them at the doors. The director of the Larch Street Children's Science Center was a venerable widow of a great scientist, and a respected researcher in her own right; not such a great name as to make front-page news outside the city, but important enough to put in the Science and Arts section, especially with a photograph of cute children. The cute children waited restlessly with their parents behind the reporters, tired of boredom and sun. The reporters agreed that while this was a strange location for a new museum, a run-down neighborhood in a small city, one could expect a certain amount of eccentricity from the old and wealthy.

The director's speech covered all the expected areas. Funding for scientific research, an emphasis on the hard sciences within schools, children of today being the geniuses of tomorrow, inspiration and dreams. She kept her words mercifully short, and the doors were opened before anyone might acquire more than a mild sunburn in the August sun.

Once inside, the children scattered in all directions, adults in pursuit, to bang, twist, poke, and read as each exhibit required. Sunlight poured through windows along two sides of the building, complete with dangling prisms and magnifiers, each labeled with entertaining facts. The reporters wandered in more slowly, snapping pictures here and there; a few tried out the interactive exhibits when they could get a turn at the machines.

In the largest room, the center of the first floor, the Director of Children's Education for the center stood in front of a whirling sphere of gears, pendulums, wires, struts... The pieces seemed endless and eclectic, and most reporters took the pictures that would run with the story in that room, of rapt children gazing up at the machine. The woman explained to all the children who could tear their attention away from exhibits long enough to listen about the dream of perpetual motion. No, of course _this_ wasn't perpetual motion, there was a clever method of keeping it all moving. If you watched for long enough, maybe you could figure it out. Children and teenagers alike leaned closely against the glass walls surrounding the machine, and pointed out there, that must be the batteries--no, wait, how does that part at the top turn like that?

Their parents appreciated the air conditioning, and the chance to have children occupied by something other than a television, if only for an hour or two. But a few studied the exhibits, and wondered, and dreamed of great things for their children.

On the far side of this central room, a tall man leaned against a wall, his arms crossed. A younger woman emerged from the crowd of children, and leaned against the wall beside him. "So," she said.

"I _still_ can't figure out how it's doing that."

"You're just not giving up on that, are you?"

"No."

"Hey, it's good to have a hobby."

He glared at her, but the woman only laughed, and put one arm in his. "Come on. Let's go see how Al's holding out."

They took the stairs up to the fourth floor, sometimes struggling to pass through the crowds of first-time visitors. The number of visitors would drop as the novelty wore off, but this place offered something little else in the area could, and already children being dragged away by parents with appointments begged to be allowed back again.

The two of them found a door marked _Staff Only_ and took the stairs behind it, passing through several security systems, nearly all of which they knew about. The fifth floor held neat carpeting, offices, a typical administrative area. They did not stop there, but continued to the top floor, where rooms held sleeping quarters, a small laboratory, and equipment not typically found in children's museums.

The woman knocked once on a door, and then entered. Inside, a young man with a baseball cap hunched over panels of videos from the security cameras. He held a pad of paper filled with sketches and notes, and beneath his chair a large black dog slept. "No disasters yet," said the young man as they entered. "Not unless you count the soda spilled on the third floor. That's going to leave a mess."

"There's a reason we decided on tile instead of carpet," said the woman. She moved from place to place in the room, flicking switches to change displays. "How's it going up here?"

"Fine," said the young man. He held up his pad of paper. "I think I've worked out an idea for an exhibit about osmosis that _won't_ end up with water and oil coating the entire room. Orli will find a dozen flaws, as always, but it's a start."

The woman spoke with the young man for a few minutes, and the tall man stayed out of the conversation. Though he did notice when the black dog opened its eyes, winked one, and then drifted back to sleep.

After a time the two of them left the room, and they climbed a final flight of stairs to the roof of the building. Two small gardens grew there, one laid out in precise lines and portions, the other a jumble of flowering plants growing over each other. The tall man sat down in a lawn chair beside a table with a broad umbrella restraining the summer sun. "What are you going to do, now that the center is up and running? Keep working here?"

The woman paced out the space of the roof, spun when she walked between the gardens. "Not quite, though I'll come back here often. I like kids. The Boss gave me another assignment."

"What did he give you?" The man leaned forward across the table as the woman passed in front of him.

"A list," said the woman, and she pulled a sheet of paper covered in names and addresses out of her pocket. "They've had enough time to do preliminary checks and decide which of these are most likely to pan out."

"Playing with Technology is dangerous," said the man, after a pause, "but I don't think telling you that would change anything you'd do. Be careful."

"I will," she said, and paused in her movement to kiss him. "Don't worry."

"I always worry," said the man.

"I know."

After a time the woman returned downstairs, to clean the floor, play with the exhibits alongside the children, return a sobbing boy to the parents he'd misplaced.

And after a time the man returned to the place where he worked.

And after a time security guards for the center politely ushered out the last of the guests, with a promise to be open again the next day. The doors were locked, and the lights in the lower floors were shut off.

And after a time, the last light from a window on the sixth floor turned off.

But the Tether remained.

**Works inspired by this one:**

  * [Gifts](https://archiveofourown.org/works/999273) by [Archangel_Beth](https://archiveofourown.org/users/Archangel_Beth/pseuds/Archangel_Beth)




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